as i see it

[arabaliozian]

comments

Sunday, August 24, 2008
***********************************************
SUNDAY SERMON
*******************************
When it comes to learning from history, we appear to know what others should have learned. As for ourselves: we don't feel the need to learn anything because, it is common knowledge that, as the smartest people on earth, we already know all we need to know and then some.
*
We know that to commit genocide is a crime against humanity. What we don't know and what we have consistently refused to learn is that to divide a nation, thus making it more vulnerable to genocide, and ultimately to genosuicide, is not one of the functions of leadership.
*
All religions are false because they divide mankind into believers and infidels. Holy books are not holy. A book that legitimizes war and massacre is an abomination and not the Word of God.
*
The quintessential oxymoron favored by all morons: Holy War.
*
Where disagreements cannot be reconciled, the leadership has failed and might as well be in alliance with the Devil.
*
Everything is connected to everything else. To divide a nation and to commit genocide or to allow others to do so, are not two separate actions but as interdependent as cause and effect.
*
Our heritage, our culture, our character and identity: it is a mistake to think of them as valuable possessions. Human beings are a bundle of contradictions and complexes, and so is the culture they produce. If we can't separate the positive from the negative, or the useful from the useless, or that which is good from that which is evil, we condemn ourself to learn nothing.
*
It is written, “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” It is also written, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” It follows, those who divide us are men without vision; and those who are subservient to them are blind.
*
Martin Amis: “If God existed, and if he cared for humankind, he would never have given us religion.”
#
Monday, August 25, 2008
********************************************
UNDERGROUND NOTES
***********************************************
Tashnaks, Ramgavars, and Chezoks are unanimous in their agreement to silence me. That at least proves that, (one) I am not in their pay, (two) I refuse to recycle their propaganda, and (three) I am un-Armenian in so far I choose to be honest, objective, and to think for myself.
*
What if I am wrong and they are right? I for one value my own humanity too much to assert divine infallibility. Let others make an ass of themselves by doing so.
*
The arrogance of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors is such that in their eyes refusing to be a brown-noser is seen as a capital offense.
*
The trouble with psychoanalysis, or criticism for that matter, is that the very people who could profit from it most – from tyrants to serial killers – refuse to be analyzed. They prefer their own brand of insanity to any other alternative. Which amounts to saying, the very same people who suffer from the most dangerous infectious diseases reject medical care. As for blunders in history: those who could profit the most from learning from them are too busy repeating them to have any time left to learn.
*
I challenge anyone to read my critics and not to agree with everything I say about Armenian filth. Zarian said, “Armenians survive by cannibalizing one another.” He should have added, “and themselves.”
*
If those I criticize had a single shred of decency left in them, they would commit suicide. If they don't, it may be because on some higher level, they have already done so. Silencing the voice of one's conscience: is that not the surest way of dehumanizing oneself?
*
He who criticizes and he who rejects all criticism on the grounds that he is beyond criticism, that is to say, he is infallible in judgment: who is the loser?
*
If I am wrong I hurt no one but myself. But if they are wrong, millions suffer.
#
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
*********************************************
OUR MANDARINS
**************************************
According to prof. George Bournoutian in a recent televised interview, the world doesn't know enough about us. That is why his central concern has been to introduce our rich history and culture to the world, beginning with American academics who appear to be more interested in blacks and Jews.
If American academics are more interested in blacks and Jews it may be because most of them are blacks and Jews.
How many academics do we have?
About thirty years ago I remember to have read a study in which it was stated that there were at least a thousand Armenian academics in the United States alone. How many of our academics, who must number over two thousand by now, are interested in our history and culture?
If the overwhelming majority of our academics prefer to churn out works on odar subjects, why should odar academics be any different?
Even more to the point, why should the world be interested to know more about us?
What have we done to deserve their interest?
What have we contributed to the world except victims?
Do we really want the world to know that we are a nation whose leadership has collaborated with some of the most criminal regimes in the history of mankind? Or a nation whose tribal rulers have succeeded only in dividing the people thus making them more vulnerable to foreign aggression?
I have no doubt whatever in my mind that there are Untouchable academics in India today, perhaps even in the United States, who believe they too have a rich history and deserve to be better known to the world. To prof. Bournoutian I ask: How much do you know or are interested to know about the Untouchables?
More questions:
If the world knew more about us, would that be to our advantage or disadvantage?
Do we really want the world to know that even after independence our so-called democracy in the Homeland is no better than a farce?
Do we really want anyone to know that after nearly a century in America, our leaders on this continent are no better than benevolent sultans?
How many of our bosses, bishops, and benefactors have been freely elected by the ppeople?
How many of them have the right to say they represent the people?
How many of us can even name these leaders?
Last but not least:
How much have we ourselves learned from our history?
I say to prof. Bournoutian, before we introduce our history to the world, let's introduce it to ourselves, and when I speak of history I mean an account of the past that is both honest and objective, which means, it does not shrink from exposing our failings. Because it is only by acknowledging our blunders and learning from them that we may be worthy of universal interest.
#
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
********************************************
NOTES & COMMENTS
**************************************
Anonymity makes a woman sound like a man, and a man like a woman. Which reminds me of the Turkish saying, “Among ten men nine are sure to be women.”
*
Subservience to a corrupt and incompetent leadership has nothing to do with patriotism and everything to do with cowardice, and cowardice comes naturally to people who for 600 years were subservient to the Sultan.
*
My detractors are my most faithful readers because they know I write about them and, as narcissists, nothing fascinates them more than themselves, no matter how bad and ugly. As for what they say about me: I don't have to read it to know. What could be more predictable than criticism or analysis motivated by revenge? When the gut speaks, the brain is silenced.
*
The aim of nationalist historians is to legitimize amnesia in so far as everything that is negative is covered up and forgotten, and everything that is positive is exaggerated or, like the Battle of Avarair, invented.
*
Somewhere Primo Levi remarks that if Italians are ashamed of being Italian it may be because they have failed to produce a political class that represents the people. Does that ring a bell?
#

[arabaliozian]

this and that

Thursday, August 28, 2008
**********************************************
IDEAS & NON-IDEAS
***************************************
Those who have the power to control ideas will, sooner or later and inevitably, gravitate towards the notion that they will function with greater freedom (that is, they can brainwash more effectively) in an environment emptied of all ideas. Remember Napoleon's dictum, “A man with ideas is my enemy.”
*
There is a saying in politics: “You can't beat somebody with nobody.” In the world of ideas, however, the only way to beat ideas is with non-ideas, and the more fossilized the non-idea, the better.
Example of a non-idea: “The Turks owe us on account of the Genocide.” Hence the plethora of massacre paraphernalia – museums, monuments, memoirs, editorials, movies, TV documentaries, monographs, demonstrations, seminars, and so on).
Another central non-idea: “We can solve all our problems with money.” Hence the frequency of fund-raising campaigns and the apotheosis of multi-millionaires. How much of the collected loot ends in the wrong pockets? No one knows. Who, after all, gives a damn what Armenians do to Armenians? Not even Armenians, it seems.
*
Common sense tells us our assessment of ourselves (that is, our narcissism) will be devoid of all value unless it is moderated, modified, and balanced by other assessments, such as French (“filthy Armenians”), Greek (“Turkish gypsies”), Russian (“cowardly Armenians”), American (“Romanian?”), and last but not least, Turkish. We may think of ourselves as “the first Christians,” but we are also “Christian Turks.”
#
Friday, August 29, 2008
*******************************************
WHO WE ARE
*******************************
We are addicts of victimhood. When no one cares to victimize us, we victimize one another.
*
A few years ago an Armenian real estate developer named an annual literary prize but after three or four years he ran out of ghazetajis.
*
If the Turks are as bad as we say they are, how did we manage to live with them for 600 years? And if we are as good as we say we are, why is it that most of us prefer to stay away from the nearest Armenian church or community center?
*
If you want to understand history, begin with yourself. Because if you don't understand yourself, you are condemned to understand nothing.
*
My good friend Armen Melikian is right to say that there must be a mechanism in the human brain, no doubt the result of some kind of evolutionary malfunction, that identifies God with the Devil, or is it vice versa?
*
Discussion forum: a place where views are exchanged.
Armenian discussion forum: a bordello of verbal abuse.
*
Even friendly readers sometimes disagree with the direction of my work. They tell me I will be better off if I were to spend my time more profitably by writing creative stuff – stories, novels, plays, or for that matter, translations of literary masterpieces: all things that will make us proud in the eyes of the world. I suspect the main concern of these misguided friends is not the welfare of the nation but the fear of seeing their role models and probably themselves exposed as charlatans and dupes.
*
They want me to translate our great writers provided I say nothing about how they lived and died, or were persecuted and silenced, or were betrayed to the authorities.
Which amounts to saying, tell us anything you want, but don't tell us the Titanic has hit the iceberg. As cover-up artists, they would like to see me following in their footsteps. I don't write for such readers. I write against them. As for our so-called proud Armenians: most of them don't even qualify as Turks.
#
Saturday, August 30, 2008
*******************************************
SOLUTIONS
************************************
Winston Churchill: “All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.”
None of these things will be available in an environment controlled by individuals with the warmth and charm of a hangman's rope.
*
The problem with solutions is not that they are difficult to find but that those who are in a position to implement them refuse to do so.
*
In America they say “throw the bums out,” meaning, vote for anyone who runs against the incumbent. We don't have a corresponding expression in Armenian probably because we don't have bums, only statesmen.
*
To be polite sometimes means to say the exact opposite of what you feel or think. But in writing, if you fail to be honest, direct, and to the point, you will be either ignored or dismissed as a hack. And that's what my critics want from me – to write like a hack so that they can dismiss me as one.
*
To those who get a kick out of insulting their betters, I say, “Be aware of what you say because an insult is also a confession – it may reveal more about yourself than about your target, especially if your insults are motivated by revenge.”
*
If only those who pretend to know better also knew when to shut up.
*
“I am a Marxist -- of the Groucho tendency.”
If Karl were alive today he would have a good laugh. If Stalin were alive, the Gulag would be his answer. And that's what separates first-raters from second-raters.
#

[arabaliozian]

contradictions

Sunday, August 31, 2008
*********************************************
MEMO TO A YOUNG WRITER
******************************************
If a reader insults you publicly and apologizes privately, he will insult you again – publicly.
*
If he believes to be right and you wrong, he will also believe to be morally superior. The words of such an intramural racist have as much weight as the words of an inbred moron and a skinhead. Ignore him. And never tell such a one to shut up. His mouth may well be his worst enemy, and your enemy's enemy is your friend.
*
If they never ask themselves “What if I am wrong?” it may be because they are too afraid of being wrong and because being wrong even once would be a blemish on their record as infallible thinkers and observers.
*
If a reader tells you he is disappointed in what you write, tell him cheerfully that a refund check is in the mail.
*
If Jihadists act in the name of Allah and our superpatriots speak in the name of the Fatherland (which in their mouths sounds more like Fartland), it's because they are brothers under the skin.
*
To think that if the ideology is right, the leadership must also be right is known as “Sartre's fallacy,” because Sartre was taken in by the likes of Stalin, Castro, and Mao. Ideology defines nothing. Power does. The more non-representative the power, the more perverse the leadership.
*
If he has the disposition of a crocodile, the memory of an elephant, the venom of a Turkish viper, the compassion of Genghis Khan, and if his profanities are sandwiched between a cliché and a platitude, he must be an Armenian superpatriot. Avoid him.
*
Remember, the rarest of all Armenians is he who speaks about the past without contaminating it with an ideological or racist propaganda line.
#
Monday, September 1, 2008
**************************************************
SCOUNDRELS
***********************************
All nations generate their share of scoundrels and we are no exception, with one important difference however: we take ours seriously. How to explain this scandal? Even after 600 years of brutal oppression in the Ottoman Empire we knew how to laugh at ourselves and our “betters.” At the turn of the last century in Istanbul our writers made merciless fun of our political agitators, religious leaders, and wealthy merchants. Zabel Yessayan, not exactly a humorist, wrote a savage satirical novel titled PHONY GENIUSES in which she excoriated our vodanavorjis.
Things are different today. As a result, we find ourselves at the mercy of inbred morons and wheeler-dealers who parade as geniuses and statesmen, fornicating bishops who advertise the sale of Oriental rugs in cathedrals, and dime-a-dozen pundits and academics whose unspoken slogan seems to be “whose bread I eat his song I sing.”
Is it conceivable that the Turks slaughtered not only our bodies but also our spirit? Why is it that the Holocaust has had the exact opposite effect on the Jews who now have a virtual monopoly on American comedy?
After violating our human right of free speech, has our leadership succeeded in brainwashing us into believing that laughter is un-Armenian, perhaps even pro-Turkish? What's next? Will they outlaw breathing? But perhaps on some level they have done that already and as a community we are no better than an assemblage of living corpses.
*
In Arthur Schlesinger's JOURNALS: 1952-2000 (New York, 2007), I read the following amusing passage: “I recall Churchill explaining how it was possible for him to go to sleep every night when he was being vehemently criticized -- 'I simply say God damn them all, and then I sleep like a baby.'”
#
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
**********************************************
DIARY
************************
One reason I no longer write fiction is that I find reality more fantastic than anything I could imagine.
*
Schlesinger, himself an establishment figure, writes in his JOURNALS: “Why can no one understand that the establishment is more likely to be wrong than to be right?” Our establishment figures are too insecure to admit as much. Why assume responsibility if they can blame all their blunders on Turks, the international community, the opposition, and the Good Lord Himself? There are no limits to their self-righteousness.
*
As for the insults that are hurled in my direction: it seems to me they are motivated less by genuine disagreement and more by fear – fear of being exposed not as statesmen of vision but the blind leading the blind. And then there is the kind of idiot who think if he succeeds in silencing me or stops reading me, he will be the winner and I the loser.
*
All they talk about is Turks and massacres, and their only message to the people is “mi kich pogh,” and because I point that out to them, they say I repeat myself.
*
Schlesinger on academics: “Why does the academic environment seem to bring out the worst in otherwise decent individuals?”
I am surprised to note that, writing in the 1980s, he refers to some of his American contemporaries as “Stalinist” and “neo-Stalinist.”
Speaking of Nixon, Ford is quoted as having said, “Sometimes I wish I had never pardoned that son of a bitch.” An unfair remark that, when one remembers a tearful Nixon in his farewell speech to the White House staff saying, “My mother was a saint.”
#
Wednesday, August 3, 2008
*****************************************
CONTRADICTIONS
**************************************
When I had enough of their steady barrage of insults, I said something to the effect that the greatest insult for a writer is to be ignored. And sure enough, the insults stopped. They are as predictable as Pavlov's dogs but think they are smart because they were brainwashed to believe all Armenians are smart, including the Mongoloids among them. My guess is, after reading this they will start insulting me all over again and say they don't have to read me to insult me. And after reading this they will be torn.
*
They don't write with their underdeveloped brain but with their overdeveloped intestines.
*
In the same way that Armenians are brainwashed to believe they are smart, Hindus believe theirs is the most tolerant of all religions, provided of course one ignores their treatment of Untouchables. Seen from the perspective of Untouchables, Hinduism is probably the least tolerant of all religions. Hence the popularity of Islam in India and the countless intramural massacres.
*
Everybody makes mistakes, except religious leaders, and Armenian political wheeler-dealers; and they don't make mistakes because they speak in the name of God, Truth, and Patriotism.
*
For many centuries kings were successful in convincing the people that their power derives from God. The first and most important project of all men with power is to bankrupt common sense.
*
Ignorance is a luxury only the very lucky can afford.
*
The very same people who abuse free speech violate someone else's free speech.
#

[arabaliozian]

O/s

Thursday, September 4, 2008
*******************************************
DIARY
*************************
When after Independence 1,500,000 Armenians chose to emigrate, did anyone ever utter the word genosuicide or see the statistical connection?
*
I once received a letter from a descendant of Raffi that said, among other things, “If Raffi were alive today, he would agree with you.” The memory of that letter means more to me than the 1001 insultS hurled at me by faceless, nameless, cowardly riffraff.
*
After silencing and alienating all dissenters, they say Armenians are unanimous on this point, when the only time we have achieved unanimity is in our passive acceptance of our status as perennial underdogs.
*
Americans speak of spin doctors. We don't have them. Ours are all quacks.
*
A Russian intellectual as quoted by Schlesinger in his JOURNALS: “I would die for democracy. But I know my people. They do not want democracy. They have never known democracy. The czars? Lenin? Stalin? Khrushchev? Brezhnev? They fear democracy. They want to be told what to do.”
If, to the above list of authoritarian rulers we add a succession of sultans that ruled us for 600 years, the picture becomes more depressing and our prospects more grim. I will never forget the university student from the Homeland who once demanded of me: “What's so great about democracy anyway?”
#
Friday, September 5, 2008
***********************************************
DIARY / III
***************************
At least in one specific endeavor I can declare myself an unqualified success – that of alienating everyone who is someone in our communities. What Zarian confided to his diary and notebooks (published only posthumously) I have posted on discussion forums and websites on the Internet accessible to the whole world.
*
Since God is the Great Unknown and Unknowable, all my efforts are now concentrated in placing as great a distance as possible between myself and the Devil, whose kingdom is within us as well as without – because someone else's within is my without.
*
When they didn't like what I wrote, they wanted to hire me. Once, I was even asked to write the biography of a national benefactor, to which I said I did not consider myself equal to the task. And they say I lack diplomacy....
*
When an Armenian is good, he is good like everyone else. But when he is bad, he is bad like a Turk – or rather, his conception of a Turk: a fat mustachioed slob in shalvars wielding a yataghan dripping with blood.
*
To die in the name of an ideal is heroic, but not if the enemy does it.
*
To humanize the dehumanized is a job not for intellectuals but for prophets and messiahs.
*
With fools, pretend to be a fool, if that is, you want to live longer.
*
At the turn of the last century in the Ottoman Empire Armenian writers wrote mostly about Armenians. In the 21st century in America they write mostly about Turks.
#
Saturday, September 6, 2008
*********************************************
OBSERVATIONS
*******************************
Freedom and patriotism are weasel words: they can be defined in a number of contradictory ways. Freedom could also mean the freedom to exploit and enslave; and what could be more absurd than to say my patriotism is good but my enemy’s patriotism is bad?
*
How much of what we know today would be reduced to ignorance if we were to see reality through the eyes of God?
*
It is not enough to voice lofty principles. One must earn the right. For myself, I shall always be grateful to Judas for not writing an ode to loyalty. But as an Armenian, I am used to reading editorials on tolerance by fanatics and listening to sermons on chastity by fornicators.
*
Mountain people think their mountain is the center of the world. They view other mountains with suspicion and the valley below with contempt. They develop their own ways and consider all others as deviations. We are mountain people who refuse to give up their mountain ways even when they live on flatlands.
*
Greed makes a man more cunning as well as stupid: more cunning in his employment of means to achieve his end, and more stupid in thinking he can hide his greed.
#

[arabaliozian]

da Vinci

Sunday, September 7, 2008
***************************************
THE DA VINCI CODE
*********************************
In still another book written by an American theologian, we are informed that the assumptions and conclusions of the DA VINCI CODE are without foundation. Maybe so, but the book raises two very important questions that so far no theologian or historian of Christianity has even attempted to answer: (a) How to explain the universal oppression of women by men? and (b) After making a mess of the world, how dare men think they can do a better job than women?
*
SCHLESINGER'S JOURNALS
*****************************************
Notwithstanding his annoying habit of name-dropping – there are at least a dozen celebrities mentioned on almost every other page – I am enjoying this gossipy book, perhaps because Schlesinger has a wonderful gift for biting politically incorrect one-liners, which happens to be my favorite genre of writing. Three random samples follow.
On Dan Quayle: “a rich jerk from Indiana.”
On homosexuals: “the crime that dare not speak its name now won't shut up.”
On Newt Gingrich: “a puppy frisking about hoping to be patted.”
He speaks often of the importance books have played in his life but he seldom mention specific titles except his own.
*
FORUM
***************************
The other day someone by the name of Mustafa or Ali wrote something to the effect that he was in the mood for screwing Armenians, and for some reason or other the Armenian moderator saw nothing objectionable in it. But when I raised the issue of anonymity promoting irresponsible conduct, he deleted it immediately. Figure that one out if you can. Increasingly now our reality is being defined by a generation without an intellectual center and without a moral compass. An environment in which the brainless is leading the blind. A generation that preaches a phony brand of patriotism but promotes cowardice, verbal abuse, and cannibalism. I am reminded of the e-mail I once received that said: “I am a proud Armenian.” Signed “Anonymous.”
There should be a clear line separating the lowest common denominator (inevitable in a democracy or wherever the majority rules) from the scum of the earth. When this line is blurred, anarchy is bound to follow.
#
Monday, September 8, 2008
********************************************
Schlesinger on John McCain in a 1998 entry: “Speaking at a Republican dinner, he told the following so-called joke: Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because she is the illegitimate child of Hillary Clinton and Janet Reno. This plus his reputedly wayward sex life will surely destroy his evident presidential aspirations.”
*
If you have eyes only for your visible assets, others will see only your hidden liabilities.
*
Churchill once said something to the effect that courage is the greatest virtue because it defines all other virtues. Something similar could be said of honesty.
*
The brainwashed don't think. They are only brainwashed to believe they do. That's why when a brainwashed Armenian meets a brainwashed Turk, they can communicate only by means of verbal abuse.
*
There are two kinds of Armenians: those who think and those who recycle propaganda. Those who recycle propaganda speak louder and they are never wrong; and armed with that conviction, they persecute and silence anyone who dares to think for himself. Examples from the past: writers from Abovian to Zarian.
*
Sociological studies reveal that if a man is prejudiced against one group, he will be
prejudiced against others too. Which is why, in our case, prejudice against the Turks is very easily modulated to prejudice against fellow Armenians.
*
You can always rely on an Armenian to justify his selfish interests with a verbal avalanche of noble principles and ideals. In the words of a friend: "After fattening themselves on the blood of the innocent and the helpless, our Count Draculas are good at delivering lectures on the virtues of vegetarianism."
#
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
**********************************************
TWO VERY SHORT STORIES
WITH UNHAPPY ENDINGS
*****************************************
Once upon a time two men met on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere. One of them was an Armenian and the other a Turk.
*
Once upon a time two men met on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere. Both of them were Armenian.*
*
ANOTHER ARMENIAN STORY
**************************************
When he was young, he wanted to be a writer but became instead an Oriental carpet dealer and made a million. Now he looks down on writers and thinks of them as naïve daydreamers and contemptible parasites.
*
QUESTIONS
************************************
When we speak of our culture and identity, can we really say our Oriental carpet dealers are not faithful manifestations of Armenianism?
What about the Armenian who hates Turks or anyone else who dares to be objective and honest?
What if by making a long list of his failings, Naregatsi was revealing our own?
What is the relative value of our cultural achievements if we bury them?
*
PATRIOTISM EXPLAINED
************************************
If it's ours, it's bound to be good even when it's bad. If it's theirs it's bound to be bad even when it's good. Our fanatics are better than their moderates. Our crooks are classier crooks. Patriotism is a contest whose rules are fixed to favor only one side.
#
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
*********************************************
REFLECTIONS ON FASCISM AND DEMOCRACY
************************************************** *********
It is widely known among citizens of a democracy that politics is the second oldest profession and that in many ways it resembles the first. Fascists agree but they think this does not apply to them. Which amounts to saying, “Our bordello madams, unlike yours, are virgins.”
*
The trouble with some of my fascist critics is that they don’t consider me worthy of criticism. Instead, they insist that I either give up writing or change my views in such a manner as to jibe with theirs. In short, they demand that I become a disciple and an echo. Their disciple and their echo! My critics are not literary critics in the usual sense of these words, but messianic figures whose message is “Abandon your ways and follow me, for I am the only path to wisdom and salvation.” To such an Armenian to say anything but “Yes, master!” would be apostasy leading to eternal damnation and hellfir
*
Memmi: “Every colonial nation carries the seeds of fascist temptation in its bosom.”

[arabaliozian]

questions

Thursday, September 11, 2008
********************************************
ENCOUNTERS WITH WRITERS
***************************************
He was a veteran of World War II and the best-selling author of a battle, which was made into a TV documentary. I no longer remember how we met but I remember him saying there are 42 (may have been 44) ways in which a publisher can screw a writer. I remember that because around the same time I read another writer, an attractive blonde, who said, “Just when you think you have been screwed every possible way, you run into a publisher who has read the KAMA SUTRA.”
*
“I write constantly, I write non-stop,” another writer told me. “I may be talking to you now but on another level I am writing. I write more than I read. I hope you do too.” No, I don't. I may write or rewrite for 30 or 45 minutes every morning but the rest of the time I read.
*
For three decades he was one of our most popular writers in the Diaspora and he was popular with everyone, including bosses, bishops, and benefactors (who subsidized the publication of his books). He wrote mostly fiction and he disapproved of my increasingly critical stance. So much so that he left my last letters unanswered. When he died, he is quoted as having said, “I die alone and friendless.”
*
After reading some of my commentaries and book reviews, Saroyan asked me if I do any “creative” writing, meaning fiction. I sent him my most recent novella published in an American literary periodical but never heard from him again. Another writer who knew him well, once said to me: “Saroyan cares only for Saroyan.” That's the way it is with all established writers. They view the work of other writers as deviations from their own. Faulkner didn't like Hemingway, and vice versa. Nabokov was contemptuous of Mann and Sartre. But then, Nabokov didn't care for many other writers, including Dostoevsky. Dostoevsky himself loathed Turgenev, and whenever Turgenev saw anything that was morbid, strange, and repellent, he would say, “C'est du Dostoevsky.” Another great writer who didn't care for Dostoevsky was Tolstoy, but it is said that the last book he read, or did not finish reading, was THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV.
#
Friday, September 12, 2008
***********************************************
LIMITATIONS
********************************
Since I have spent most of my life in the company of books, I don't mind admitting that I know very little or nothing about life, reality, and the world at large. As a result, I have many more doubts than certainties. But one of the very few certainties I feel qualified to profess is that we are not a race apart. We should be judged as human beings and not as Armenians, whatever that may mean to our chauvinists and holier-than-thou charlatans. I refuse to be taken in by academics and pundits who expect me to believe that, since they know more about our history and culture, ordinary standards do not apply to us. Neither am I easily taken in by ayatollahs, popes, bishops, and the verbiage of so-called charismatic politicians. To those who quote Holy Books and speak in the name of the Almighty, I say: Only if you reach a consensus among yourselves, may I consider listening to what you have to say. Until then I question your authority to hang a label on me as a heretic, an infidel, or an atheist. If I am an atheist, it's because I am against all theists who speak in the name of God and do the Devil's work. And to those who speak in the name of patriotism, I say: If your patriotism justifies the murder of innocent civilians, the hangman's rope is too good for you.
#
Saturday, September 13, 2008
******************************************
BURNING QUESTIONS
*********************************
Was Jesus the son of God, a prophet, or a blasphemer?
This is not exactly a burning question for me. As far as I can remember, I have not wasted a single moment of my adult life worrying over it.
The burning question for me is how can Christian, Muslim, and Jewish religious leaders go on brainwashing and propagandizing entire continents and get away with it? How can reasonable men allow themselves to be manipulated to the point of killing and dying with the unshakable conviction that they will be rewarded in an afterlife? How can decent and law-abiding citizens surrender their minds and souls to these charlatans who are no better than moral morons or intellectual midgets, and probably both, simply because they quote from a so-called Holy Book which they say it's the Word of God?
#

[arabaliozian]

remarks

Sunday, September 14, 2008
***********************************************
ON LEADERSHIP
*********************************
Arthur Schlesinger in a 1967 entry: “It is depressing to think that three of the great world leaders of 1967 – Mao, de Gaulle, and Johnson – are slightly crazy (and most of the rest are mediocrities).
*
On Nixon: “He was the greatest shit – probably the only shit – ever elected President of the United States.”
*
If I were to write a text on our recent history, a good working title would be “A regime of shits.” In all fairness to our leaders, I should add that some of them were well-meaning shits. The fact remains however that none of them was equal to the task. I say this to warn all our politically ambitious upstarts that not everyone is cut out for the job. To surround oneself with like-minded yes-men is easy. To seduce an audience with rhetoric is also easy. But reality is a cold bitch. The rest is bull and bias, and I for one happen to be a born-again anti-bias fanatic.
*
The chances are he who believes in God will also believe in the existence of honest politicians.
*
Our genocide happened as surely as World War I and World War II; but its reasons, like the reasons of both world wars are not as one-sided as Turks and Armenians assert them to be.
*
An atheist who thinks is closer to God than a believer who doesn't.
#
Monday, September 15, 2008
***************************************
JOHNSON SPEAKS
********************************
President Johnson to Henry Kissinger as quoted by Arthur Schlesinger in his JOURNALS: “Okay, we will do it the professor's [Kissinger's] way. But (glaring at Kissinger) if it doesn't work, I will personally cut your balls off.”
*
HOMELAND
***********************
When our patriotic writers in the Ottoman Empire spoke of “homeland” they meant Istanbul. Does anyone know how many of them actually set foot in Armenia?
In the 19th century, even writers born and raised on Armenian soil, preferred to live and work in Tiflis.
In the 20th century, anyone who was someone in Armenian literature in Armenia was betrayed to the authorities and was either shot or exiled to Siberia.
Zarian was the only major writer from the Diaspora who repatriated after Khrushchev's Thaw, and after being treated as a leper, he was either murdered or died as a result of an accidental fall.
The fate of another writer, Navasartian by name, the son of an eminent Tashnak leader in Egypt, was even more tragic if only because he was much younger than Zarian. He either committed suicide, was pushed, or (according to Zaroukian who wrote a book about him) got drunk, lost his balance, and fell to his death from a hotel balcony in Yerevan.
I met Navasartian twice: first time in Greece in the 1940s or early '50s, second time, about ten years later, in Canada. He was a mesmerizing speechifier.
As for writers after Independence, since they are alive and active on the Internet, I will let them speak for themselves.
*
FINAL REMARKS
******************************
The Irish say, “Ireland is a good place to die.”
Something similar could be said of our own beloved homeland.
*
American political leaders may speak like thugs but ours live as thugs. So please, let's cut out the b.s. when we speak of our homeland.
#
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
******************************************
TENTATIVE ANSWERS
***********************************
There are no final answers. Final answers are only for popes, ayatollahs, and fascists. If an answer does not raise two more questions, it cannot be right.
*
To be slaves of former slaves (our case) also means to allow ourselves to be brainwashed by brain-damaged dupes.
*
We like to say that nations that question the reality of our genocide are motivated by self-interest, thus implying nations that are on our side are morally superior. As for our own moral superiority: we take that for granted and we expect everyone else to do so.
*
You cannot judge the conduct of a war by authorized press releases. Neither can you judge the past by authorized textbooks. For the very simple reason that those in authority care much more about their image than the truth.
*
To silence dissent means to prepare the ground for a generation of executioners.
*
There is a type of charlatan (Bush and Chaney come to mind) who will always be against compromise and for war, provided of course someone else does the killing and dying.
#
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
***********************************************
POLITICS AND LITERATURE
**********************************************
All politically motivated assertions contain a fraction of bias and bull. If a politician tells you the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, or two plus two makes four, ask yourself, “What's in it for him?” and if he shakes your hand, make sure there are no missing digits.
*
There is a type of charlatan who not only pretends to know all he needs to know but also what's good for the rest of us, even though he has at no time even bothered to ask what is it that we or any one of us wants.
*
What could be more naïve for a Turk than to believe Turkish politicians on the grounds that they are Turks. Likewise, what could be more naïve for an Armenian to believe Armenian politicians on the grounds that if they are Armenians they must be honest.
*
They resent me because I speak of reality. What they want me to do is sing a lullaby. Literature to them is nothing but variations on “Yes im anoush Hayastani,” which is itself a variation on a poem by Pushkin; which, by the way and in passing, is an excellent proof of the literary theory that says, the greatest source of inspiration for poets is not reality but other poets. But then, this is true of all literary activity. Aristotle is unthinkable without Plato, or Plato without Socrates; or Marx without Hegel; or Dostoevsky without Dickens and Gogol.
*
I remember once many years ago reviewing a collection of poems by one of our bishops. It was such a transparent imitation of Verlaine that it qualified as a clear-cut case of plagiarism and I said as much in my review, which was published in an American literary periodical. As far as I know, the good bishops never published another bad poem after that.
*
I also remember to have reviewed a volume of poems by one of our political bosses. It was incomprehensible avant-garde trash, but to my eternal shame I praised it highly on the chauvinist theory – yes, I was once a dealer in chauvinist crapola – if it's Armenian it's bound to be good.
*
Speaking of politicians and poets: If Zarian is right, Ottoman sultans have inspired more poetic tributes by Armenian poets in Istanbul than Armenian politicians in Yerevan.
#

[arabaliozian]

friends

Thursday, September 18, 2008
*****************************************
YOU WANT A FRIEND?
*********************************
You have a far better chance with a dog than with Homo sapiens.
*
YOU CANNOT ARGUE WITH A BISHOP
*************************************************
Church unity has become a Utopian illusion because so far no one has been successful in convincing two bishops that one of them owes his position of eminence to the KGB and the other to the CIA.
*
YES, SIR! (I)
****************************
Everything a man says to a tyrant is driven by cunning and hypocrisy. Tyrants know this and they are flattered. They prefer dishonest brown-nosers to honest critics.
*
YES, SIR! (II)
************************************
The two most hateful words in my dictionary. To those who say “Yes, sir!” are fine words because they stand for respect for authority, I say, maybe so, but you cannot solve problems by dropping your pants and bending over.
*
MUCHO MACHO
****************************
They believe God to be on their side and, as long as they follow the Guidance and regardless of what happens in this life, they will spend the next deflowering virgins, and no one speaks in defense of defenseless virgins.
*
NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANTIY
*************************************************
Once upon a time there was a fearless driver who, when warned to avoid certain neighborhoods and to drive more defensively, would say, “As long as I follow traffic rules I have nothing to worry about.” And now, after the inevitable, all he does is stare into space with expressionless eyes and say, “It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault.”
*
SITUATION/SHITUATION
***************************************
To be a posthumous success means to be a living failure, and for every writer that fails there are at least a dozen bishops who succeed.
In the Ottoman period, if it wasn't the Turks, it was TB.
In the Soviet period, if it wasn't a bullet in the neck, it was the Gulag.
In the Diaspora today, if it's not being dependent on the charity of swine it's the death of a thousand cuts.
#
Friday, September 19, 2008
***************************************
Only crooks and barbarians fight. Sooner or later all civilized men reach a consensus through compromise.
*
An Armenian with a highly developed spirit of contradiction doesn't feel the need to think. He contradicts first and comes up with reasons next, even if these reasons convince no one but himself.
*
You may have noticed that people who screw other people, unlike their victims, always have good reasons for doing what they do.
*
As soon as rules and criteria are established, there will always be those who will exploit them to their advantage, and in time assume key positions. In human affairs evil always triumphs – from commissars in the USSR, and televangelists in America, to holier-than-thou sanctimonious child-molesting pricks everywhere.
*
On their way back from the Homeland my mother and sister were approached by one of their elderly travel companions, who said to them: “Please, don't mention our bad experiences to Ara, he may write about them.” It is beyond me why some people think covering up misconduct or abuses is patriotic, when obviously it is the exact opposite. Who after all benefits from filthy washrooms and unsanitary hospitals? Surely, not our tourist industry.
*
What I do is a waste of time, I know that now. Even if I were to succeed I would fail. Consider the life, work, and influence of even the greatest reformers like Luther and Marx. What have they accomplished? They simply replaced one form of exploitation, abuse, and corruption with another. Which is why I have lowered my sights. My aim now is to give our riffraff insomnia, even if the insomnia lasts no more than a fraction of a second.
*
In the biography of an English writer (Simon Gray, 1936-2008) I read that he deplored “the ugliness and bad manners of his contemporaries,” he thought “we live in exceptionally stupid times,” and “State education was controlled by savages who should be strung from lampposts.” Nothing further, Your Honor!
#
Saturday, September 20, 2008
*****************************************
THEM AND US
******************************
One of the obscenties about our genocide is the average Turcocentric ghazetaji who has convinced himself and his dupes that our welfare as a nation depends on bloodthirsty subhuman savages. He at no time is willing to consider the possibility that not all Turks are savages, and that some of them may even be more civilized than he.
*
Like most Armenians, I have followed many controversies in our media,
but I have at no time heard an Armenian say: “I was wrong!” or, even better, “I was dead wrong because I placed my own ego, interests, family, political party, church, or tribe above the interests of the nation or, for that matter, humanity as a whole.”
*
“Hatred,” Gandhi said, “injures the haters, never the hated.”
Marx said capital dehumanizes not only the worker but also the capitalist himself.
And now listen to Pope Pius XI: “Dead matter leaves the factory ennobled and transformed, whereas men are corrupted and degraded.”
It is safe to assume that by “men” the Pope didn’t think of the workers only but also their exploiters and society as a whole.
All this to suggest that we dehumanize the Turk at the cost of dehumanizing not only ourselves, and our communities, but also our relationships with one another.
To see evidence of this all one has to do is follow any intramural controversy in our press or discussion forum on the internet, including this one.
*
Assessing oneself as infallible may well be the surest symptom of terminal cretinism.
#

[arabaliozian]

them/us

Thursday, September 18, 2008
*****************************************
YOU WANT A FRIEND?
*********************************
You have a far better chance with a dog than with Homo sapiens.
*
YOU CANNOT ARGUE WITH A BISHOP
*************************************************
Church unity has become a Utopian illusion because so far no one has been successful in convincing two bishops that one of them owes his position of eminence to the KGB and the other to the CIA.
*
YES, SIR! (I)
****************************
Everything a man says to a tyrant is driven by cunning and hypocrisy. Tyrants know this and they are flattered. They prefer dishonest brown-nosers to honest critics.
*
YES, SIR! (II)
************************************
The two most hateful words in my dictionary. To those who say “Yes, sir!” are fine words because they stand for respect for authority, I say, maybe so, but you cannot solve problems by dropping your pants and bending over.
*
MUCHO MACHO
****************************
They believe God to be on their side and, as long as they follow the Guidance and regardless of what happens in this life, they will spend the next deflowering virgins, and no one speaks in defense of defenseless virgins.
*
NOT GUILTY BY REASON OF INSANTIY
*************************************************
Once upon a time there was a fearless driver who, when warned to avoid certain neighborhoods and to drive more defensively, would say, “As long as I follow traffic rules I have nothing to worry about.” And now, after the inevitable, all he does is stare into space with expressionless eyes and say, “It wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault.”
*
SITUATION/SHITUATION
***************************************
To be a posthumous success means to be a living failure, and for every writer that fails there are at least a dozen bishops who succeed.
In the Ottoman period, if it wasn't the Turks, it was TB.
In the Soviet period, if it wasn't a bullet in the neck, it was the Gulag.
In the Diaspora today, if it's not being dependent on the charity of swine it's the death of a thousand cuts.
#
Friday, September 19, 2008
***************************************
Only crooks and barbarians fight. Sooner or later all civilized men reach a consensus through compromise.
*
An Armenian with a highly developed spirit of contradiction doesn't feel the need to think. He contradicts first and comes up with reasons next, even if these reasons convince no one but himself.
*
You may have noticed that people who screw other people, unlike their victims, always have good reasons for doing what they do.
*
As soon as rules and criteria are established, there will always be those who will exploit them to their advantage, and in time assume key positions. In human affairs evil always triumphs – from commissars in the USSR, and televangelists in America, to holier-than-thou sanctimonious child-molesting pricks everywhere.
*
On their way back from the Homeland my mother and sister were approached by one of their elderly travel companions, who said to them: “Please, don't mention our bad experiences to Ara, he may write about them.” It is beyond me why some people think covering up misconduct or abuses is patriotic, when obviously it is the exact opposite. Who after all benefits from filthy washrooms and unsanitary hospitals? Surely, not our tourist industry.
*
What I do is a waste of time, I know that now. Even if I were to succeed I would fail. Consider the life, work, and influence of even the greatest reformers like Luther and Marx. What have they accomplished? They simply replaced one form of exploitation, abuse, and corruption with another. Which is why I have lowered my sights. My aim now is to give our riffraff insomnia, even if the insomnia lasts no more than a fraction of a second.
*
In the biography of an English writer (Simon Gray, 1936-2008) I read that he deplored “the ugliness and bad manners of his contemporaries,” he thought “we live in exceptionally stupid times,” and “State education was controlled by savages who should be strung from lampposts.” Nothing further, Your Honor!
#
Saturday, September 20, 2008
*****************************************
THEM AND US
******************************
One of the obscenties about our genocide is the average Turcocentric ghazetaji who has convinced himself and his dupes that our welfare as a nation depends on bloodthirsty subhuman savages. He at no time is willing to consider the possibility that not all Turks are savages, and that some of them may even be more civilized than he.
*
Like most Armenians, I have followed many controversies in our media,
but I have at no time heard an Armenian say: “I was wrong!” or, even better, “I was dead wrong because I placed my own ego, interests, family, political party, church, or tribe above the interests of the nation or, for that matter, humanity as a whole.”
*
“Hatred,” Gandhi said, “injures the haters, never the hated.”
Marx said capital dehumanizes not only the worker but also the capitalist himself.
And now listen to Pope Pius XI: “Dead matter leaves the factory ennobled and transformed, whereas men are corrupted and degraded.”
It is safe to assume that by “men” the Pope didn’t think of the workers only but also their exploiters and society as a whole.
All this to suggest that we dehumanize the Turk at the cost of dehumanizing not only ourselves, and our communities, but also our relationships with one another.
To see evidence of this all one has to do is follow any intramural controversy in our press or discussion forum on the internet, including this one.
*
Assessing oneself as infallible may well be the surest symptom of terminal cretinism.
#

[arabaliozian]

vampires

Sunday, September 21, 2008
*******************************************
ARARAT
************************
About Frank Westerman's ARARAT, we read the following in THE SPECTATOR (London, August 30, 2008): “...a book of stupendous richness and complexity, a cornucopia or jumbled facts about geology, history, and since, woven into personal memoirs and travelogue that combines stories with information about religious belief, academic rivalry, portraits of fellow travellers, mountaineering history, politics, personalities and an abundance of lesser uncategorisable side-detail.” The author is described as “a clever, talented 43-year-old Dutchman of Puritan stock, [who] from his early twenties ceased to pray...and [whose] books have won important literary prizes.”
On the genesis of the book: “He first saw Ararat, the great mountain-volcano, from the Soviet side. It seemed to pull him.”
#
Monday, September 22, 2008
*********************************************
CONSENSUS?
*******************************
Our Turcocentric ghazetajis, international lawyers, eminent historians, and statesmen tell us we have a very strong case against the Turks, provided the necessary amount of funds is forthcoming. Deep in a dark corner of my mind however I cannot help suspecting that the nation is being victimized for the second time. Consider some of the relevant facts in the matter. Our politicians have been of no political use to us. Lawyers will be on the side of anyone who pays them for their services. No one trusts in the judgment of nationalist historians except their brainwashed dupes. As for ghazetajis, the less said about them the better. And now a question: Why is it that the only time these gentlemen develop a consensus is when they want to raise funds?
*
ON TRADITIONS
************************************
Whenever I hear talk of tradition or traditional values, I think of Winston Churchill's retort to an English admiral: “Don't talk to me about naval tradition. It's nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash.” And Mahler's dictum: “There is no such thing as tradition. There is only stupidity and genius.”
*
WHERE I STAND
********************************
I am not pro-Turkish. Neither am I anti-Armenian. I am for human beings regardless of race, color and creed, and against hoodlums, ditto.
*
SCHOOLS OF ARMENIAN CRITICISM
***********************************************
There are two main schools of Armenian literary criticism: the first consists in calling the writer a damn fool, and the second in stating that what he says is a lot of crap.
#

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
***********************************************
COMPASS QUOTATIONS
*********************************************
I call them that because they tell us where we were, where we are, and where we are heading. And I for one never get tired of rereading them.
**************************************************

“What kind of people are we? What kind of leadership is this? Instead of compassion, mutual contempt. Instead of reason blind instinct. Instead of common sense, fanaticism. They speak of the cross and nail us to it again as they speak.”

ANTRANIK ZAROUKIAN
(1912-1989)
Poet, novelist, critic, editor.

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

“All our religious, political, and cultural institutions share a single aim, the survival of the nation. If the nation perishes, neither Echmiadzin nor Antelias, not even God in his heaven, can be of any help to us.”

SIMON VRATSIAN
(1882-1969)
Statesman. Last Prime Minister of the Republic of
Armenia
(1918-1920).
***********************************************

“We Armenians are products of the tribal mentality of Turks and Kurds, and this tribal mentality remains stubbornly rooted even among our leaders and elites.”

NIGOL AGHBALIAN
(1873-1947)
Statesman, literary scholar, educator.

************************************************** *
“A familiar figure in our collective existence is the prosperous and arrogant community leader who, by obstructing the path of all those who wish to reform
and improve our conditions, perpetuates a status quo whose sole aim is his own personal profit and aggrandizement.”

LEVON PASHALIAN
(1868-1943)
Athor, editor.

**************************************************
“The Armenian Diaspora is losing its character. Our language, our literature, and our traditions are degenerating. Even our religious leaders have abandoned their calling and turned into cunning wheeler-dealers. Our publications thrive on meaningless controversies. I see charlatanism and cheap chauvinism everywhere
but not a single trace of self-sacrifice and dedication to principles and ideals. What's happening to us? Where are we heading? Quo vadis, O Armenian people?

SHAVARSH MISSAKIAN
(1884-1957)
Author, editor, critic.

#

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
********************************************
ON HONESTY
****************************
Because some Turks enjoy reading me, I am accused of anti-Armenianism; and because some Armenians enjoy reading Akcam and Pamuk, they are accused of insulting Turkishness. And this according to bureaucrats who take their marching orders from politicians, for whom honesty is a hostile concepts and truth enemy propaganda.
*
ON PRAISE
***********************
Praise I suspect because it makes me blind to my own failings. Criticism, even when motivated by prejudice, ignorance, or revenge, I welcome because it makes me stop and think, even if the interruption lasts no more than a fraction of a second.
*
MONEY TALKS
***************************
A publisher once sent me a review copy of an Armenian WHO'S WHO in which the average entry on benefactors was seven times longer than the entries on writers. I did not review it. Let the benefactors review it, I thought, with their calculating machines.
*
ON JUSTICE
*************************
Is there such a thing as a Supreme Court in Armenia? Who are the Justices? Does anyone know their names? Why is it that they never make headlines in our press? As things stand, not only are they anonymous but also invisible, and they might as well be non-existent.
*
VAMPIRES
*********************************
There is a type of Turcocentric Armenian who judges his fellow Armenians by how much they hate Turks. To him the ideal Armenian is he whose favorite breakfast drink is neither coffee nor orange juice but Turkish blood.
#

[arabaliozian]

french

Thursday, September 25, 2008
***********************************************
A LAND OF 1001 WATERGATES
*******************************************
A Watergate-style scandal is unthinkable in Armenia. When told the President had lied to the people, an Armenian is quoted as having said: “So what? They lie to us all the time.”
*
MEMOS TO A YOUNG WRITER
************************************************
Never insult readers who insult you. Analyze them. No insult can be as lethal as a good analysis.
*
Once about ten years ago I called one of my borodakhos and anpardavan detractors “an inbred moron.” Ever since then he has been trying to get even by reading and contradicting everything I say even when doing so means proving me right.
*
Early success means early death. Mozart, Schubert, Chopin – dead in their thirties. Shakespeare, Beethoven, Dostoevsky – dead in their fifties. Another disadvantage of dying young is that you will never have a chance to read the obituaries of your detractors. Aim therefore at posthumous immortality.
*
ON BELIEF SYSTEMS
************************************
They are all alike in the sense that they teach the brain to be a useless organ and thinking for oneself a dangerous enterprise that may lead to heresy and eternal hellfire. In that sense fundamentalist fanatics of all religions are more vegetable than animal, and more mineral than vegetable.
*
ON GENOCIDE RECOGNITION
*****************************************
We have a better chance of achieving our goal if we appeal to the conscience of civilized Turks. To do so, however, we must first civilize ourselves.
*
ON BEING POLITICALLY CORRECT
***********************************************
The only reason we have not yet become a recognizable object of ridicule is that we keep talking about massacres, and massacres, as everyone knows, are no joke.
*
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
*******************************************
Noel Coward: “How would I like to be remembered? By my charm, you silly bugger.”
#
Friday, September 26, 2008
***********************************************
UN HOMBRE CON COJONES
****************************************
During the Soviet era, I remember, one of our brilliant academics, and no doubt a proud descendant of David of Sassoun, visited the Homeland and upon his return published a ferocious attack on lazy hotel waiters who, it seems, responded to his commands with the blinding speed of Slow Poke Rodriguez. This gentleman, it appears, was accustomed to dealing with waiters who moved with the alacrity of Speedy Gonzelez. And to think that we trust the education of our boys and girls to this type of elitist riffraff and crème de la scum.
*
MEDIOCRITIES AND PLAGIARISTS
**********************************************
If a writer is Armenian and is not internationally known, like say, Arlen and Saroyan, he is generally dismissed as a mediocrity. If, one the other hand, he is good, he is accused of plagiarism. Even Zarian was dismissed as a plagiarist by both Oshagan pere et fils. And worse! I once heard one of our academics assert that Zarian was a hireling of the KGB. Since I have myself been accused of being an agent of the KGB, the CIA, the Mossad, and the Grey Wolves, I feel justified in adopting a skeptical stance towards all such charges.
*
SWAN SONG
************************
If I ever write an autobiography I will title it THE SWAN SONG OF A JACKASS: THE MEMOIRS OF AN ARMENIAN WRITER.
*
QUOTATION OF THE DAY
****************************************
Charles Dickens: “It's over, and can't be helped, and that's one consolation, as they always say in Turkey, when they cut the wrong man's head off.”
#
Saturday, September 27, 2008
***********************************************
FORGIVE MY FRENCH
************************************
Even senile old men who can't get it up refuse to die. How does one go about convincing boys and girls in their teens and twenties to go to war, to kill and die? Leave it to the elites, the educated classes, the leaders – the true creative forces in human history. Beside them writers, poets, and philosophers are nothing but hopeless mediocrities who deal in empty verbiage.
*
By ridiculing our elites, I am told, I alienate the young, the naïve, and the innocent, thus threatening the survival of the nation. To which I can only say, a nation that has survived centuries of corruption, incompetence, ruthless oppression, wars, massacres, dispersion, and subhuman existence in foreign slums should not have any trouble surviving the opinions of a minor scribbler.
*
When asked why he drank so much, Odian, an alcoholic, is quoted as having said, “To drown my sorrows.” Was he successful in drowning them?” he was asked next. “No,” he replied,”the buggers are excellent swimmers.” So are our bosses, bishops, and benefactors. For over a thousand years our writers from Khorenatsi, Raffi, Baronian and Odian to Shahnour, Zarian, and Massikian have exposed their dirt to no effect.
*
And consider what's happening today in America. We are expected to trust the judgment of a bunch of millionaires telling us -- including slum-dwellers like myself -- that the economy is in deep shit and unless something is done pronto we may be in deeper shit.
*
Dupes have no use for their brains because they believe everything they are told by someone with a beard, a title, and a degree. Somewhere Shakespeare writes “life is a tale told by an idiot.” It would be more accurate to say that it is a tale told by smart operators to a bunch of retards.
#

[arabaliozian]

notes

Sunday, September 28, 2008
***********************************************
An American pundit on chief executive officers: “The government cannot place limitations on the salaries and bonuses of CEO's. These are smart people. They know how to handle money. If they don't make it one way, they will find other ways.”
In other words, the net of our justice system can catch sardines but not sharks, because it was designed by sharks.
Or, if you are going to steal, go into banking and leave petty larceny to criminals.
*
If we ever let loose a forensic accountant into our organizations, I suspect he will suffocate in a pile of manure as big as Mount Ararat.
*
Capitalism: socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor.
*
If I am against everything that I believed thirty years ago, it only means that I did not waste my last thirty years because I learned things I didn't know.
*
What makes a loser think he is morally superior is a psychological maneuver known as compensation. But there is compensation and there is overcompensation, as when an inbred moron assesses himself as a genius.
*
If I repeat myself it's because when I am misunderstood, I don't mind trying again.
*
Think of a dissident as someone who says “I refuse to be brainwashed.”
#
Monday, September 29, 2008
***********************************************
REFLECTIONS OF A FORMER DUPE
************************************************** **
If I am as bad a writer as some of my readers are eager to inform me, why even bother reading me when there are so many good ones, among them patriotic academics, historians, pundits, and poets?
*
Why is it that believers persecute non-believers? Is it because believers may believe they believe but they don't really believe, and in silencing infidels they hope to silence their own doubts?
*
During the Soviet era dissidents were persecuted, exiled, and shot. Did that prolong the existence of the USSR by even a fraction of a second?
*
Great nations produce great writers. Shakespeare wrote for kings and queens, not brainwashed fools and fishwives.
*
An Armenian could never have said “You can't fool all the people all the time,” because Armenians have been successfully fooled for more than 1500 years now.
*
What happened to our Bagratunis who denied their Armenian identity and claimed to be Jews descended from the Biblical King David? What happened to our Mamikonians (of Chinese descent) who claimed to have fought the heroic Battle of Avarair, which, according to some historians, not all of them odar, never took place?
*
Nations need myths. Only deceivers need lies.
*
The more brainwashed they are the lower their IQ, the higher their intolerance, the deeper their ignorance, the greater their fanaticism.
*
I can recognize a brainwashed dupe when I see one. I was one myself most of my life.
*
Harry Truman on Richard Nixon: “I don't think the son of a bitch knows the difference between telling the truth and lying.”
#
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
***********************************************
They are calling it a tsunami. It's nothing of the kind. Tsunamis are natural phenomena. The present economic crisis is man-made – a result of deregulation, mismanagement, and greed. The greedy should be exposed, named, tried, and penalized, not rewarded, promoted, or trusted to solve the problem.
*
There is an Armenian forum on the Internet in which Turks outnumber the Armenians and which consists mostly in exchanges of insults and profanities. Turks verbally abuse Armenians, Armenians abuse Turks, and – you guessed – Armenians abuse Armenians. After a while you can't tell who's who because they all sound alike, which reminds me of what Granian once told me: “Scratch an Armenian and find a Turk.”
*
Call someone ignorant and condemn yourself to learn nothing from him.
*
The smaller the country, the greater the number of its self-assessed geniuses.
*
I know how to write for idiots. As for writing for lesser idiots: I leave that to far better men than myself.
*
Driving half an hour to a golf course, playing golf for an hour, having a drink afterwards with the boys, or watching a hockey game on TV – that's my idea of hell.
*
Whenever I have been exploited, abused, and insulted, it's been with my consent and cooperation. To realize this is to be born again.
*
Winston Churchill (on being told several of his fly-buttons were undone): “No matter. The dead bird does not leave the nest.”
#
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
***********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
I believe there is a special place in hell reserved for people who think what they know is good enough for them and no one and nothing can change that.
*
Freedom and patriotism are weasel words: they can be defined in a number of contradictory ways. Freedom could also mean the freedom to exploit and enslave. And what could be more absurd than to say my patriotism is good but my enemy’s patriotism is bad?
*
How much of what we know today would be reduced to ignorance if we were to see reality through the eyes of God?
*
My ambition as an Armenian is to be a human being.
*
Patriotism does not mean joining our leaders in covering up their blunders.
*
As slaves of former slaves, we are double underdogs, and we need a double revolution to emerge from our cage within a cage.
*
What is the value of an insult delivered anonymously and from a safe distance? To put it more bluntly: Why should anyone give a damn what a garbage-mouth cowardly nonentity thinks?
*
When I went into this business, it never occurred to me that some day I would be wasting most of my time trying to teach manners to hoodlums.
*
Johnson on Gerald Ford: “So dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.”
#

[arabaliozian]

survival

Thursday, October 2, 2008
***********************************************
ON SURVIVAL
********************************
If we are survivors, what would you call cockroaches – an endangered species? Am I comparing Armenians to cockroaches. No, of course not! I have never heard a cockroach brag.
*
If our destiny was to be extinct, we are a success story. But if our destiny was to be an empire, we are a miserable failure.
I remember once when I said as much, one of my most combative, sriga detractors said: “We are a civilized, peace-loving people; we are not bloodthirsty imperialists.”
If that's what we are, why is it that we are taught to brag about our empire under Dikran the Great, and our political and military leaders in the Byzantine Empire?
As far as I know, there has never been a nation that voluntarily gave up its imperial ambitions and chose to be subservient to ruthless foreign despots. Neither have I heard of a pack of wolves that converted to vegetarianism and adopted the lifestyle of sheep.
*
One reason I don't always reply to my garbage-mouth critics is that in their efforts to silence me they make themselves so repulsive that arguing with them would be like killing someone who is committing suicide.
*
In a previous entry I mentioned an Armenian forum in which Turks outnumber Armenians. Some damn fool on this forum has been deleting my things probably because he recognizes himself in what I write. If this anonymous and cowardly fool is an Armenian, I say, shame on him. If he is a Turk, he must be a direct descendant of Sultan Mahomet “whose Turkish troops took Constantinople in 1453 and paused in the butchery long enough to burn most of the library books and toss 120,000 manuscripts into the sea. (See Fernando Baez, A UNIVERSAL HISTORY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF BOOKS.)
#
Friday, October 3, 2008
***********************************************
TO MY READERS
********************************
If we ever experience a Renaissance, I would like it to be a renaissance not of Michelangelos and da Vincis but of common sense and decency.
*
A suggestion to readers who tell me I hate my fellow Armenians. Next time you find yourself in front of a mirror, take a good look and ask yourself, “Am I lovable?”
*
They tell me I should be more friendly to my readers, including those who disagree with me. Honey attracts more flies than vinegar? So does crap. I have been a fool too long and I have dealt with fools too many times to have any illusions about them, and one thing I have learned is that it never pays to encourage them into thinking they belong to the human race.
*
In my business it is very important to have “an unerring eye for humbug” (Kant), or a gadget known as “a reliable shit-detector” (Hemingway).
*
If you repeat what someone has told you, you are not expressing your views but his, in which case to say nothing would be preferable.
*
Science tells us men and beasts are different in many respects. What it doesn't tell us is that in one very important respect they are alike: they are both ruled by the law of the jungle.
*
And speaking of cannibalism, listen to Henry Fielding's definition of love: “The desire of satisfying a voracious appetite with a certain quantity of delicate white human flesh.”
#
Saturday, October 4, 2008
***********************************************
ON LOYALTY, AMONG OTHER THINGS
************************************************** ****
Everything I write is an answer to a specific question. I must have answered over a thousand questions by now. The only questions I refuse to answer are the ones whose implication is “You are either with me or against me.” These are not questions as demands for a loyalty oath. Loyalty to men is a fascist concept and as such loathsome. There is no merit in being loyal to swine. Loyalty to principles and truth, yes, by all means: I am all for it.
*
A mediocre book about mediocre people by a mediocre writer would be a best-seller because everyone would like to know what others are really like.
*
Even as we brag we expose our failings, and we do this with almost primitive unawareness. Because our best and brightest did not survive, our worthless and worst brag about their genius for survival.
#

[arabaliozian]

marx

Sunday, October 5, 2008
***********************************************
CONTROVERSIAL REFLECTIONS
************************************************** ****
If a big mouth were a sign of intelligence, courage, and initiative, every other Armenian would be another Napoleon, and probably he is in his own mind.
*
Sometimes I am described as controversial. If I am, it is only with the naïve, the uninformed, the ignorant, and the unaware.
*
According to some psychologists, the compulsion to speak the truth is neurotic. By contrast, the compulsion to lie is a survival tactic and as such in no need of psychiatric treatment.
*
I realized I was growing old when old men treated me as if I were one of them.
*
After I die I will be remembered by those I have insulted. This may not be an ideal form of immortality but, as the saying goes, beggars can't be choosers.
*
If you think I repeat myself, you can reduce the repetitions by 50% if you read me every other day, and 100% if you quit reading me.
*
Yanks have talking heads. We have snarling snouts, and if some readers are right, I am one of them.
*
We tend to forget that our propaganda has as much effect on them as theirs on us.
*
Woody Allen: “I can't listen to too much Wagner, ya know? I start to get the urge to conquer Poland.”
#
Monday, October 6, 2008
***********************************************
ALL FASCISTS ARE PATHOLOGICAL LIARS
************************************************** ****
That's because fascism and truth are mutually exclusive concepts. Even when they speak the truth they lie because their little truths serve to prop up Big Lies.
When in power, they silence all dissent because they are afraid to be exposed as liars to their blind followers. When not in power, they verbally abuse anyone who dares to speak in defense of human rights and free speech.
*
Fascism cannot be defeated with arguments. It took a world war to defeat fascism and even then it was only a temporary victory. There are more fascist regimes today than there are democracies, and there are fascists even in democracies. They may not call themselves fascists but they are as fascist as the fascists under Mussolini who was said to be “always right” (“Mussolini ha sempre ragione.”)
Who do you think brainwashes teenage boys and girls to blow themselves up in crowded places and kill as many innocent civilians as possible – all in the name of God, Of course: fascists!
What are skinheads, nationalists, and racists who are brainwashed to believe they know better because they are better?
*
And in case you think we are too smart or civilized to be fascists: I just finished reading an article in an American magazine in which it is stated that sixteen journalists have been beaten up recently in Yerevan and so far no arrests have been made. (See “Caucasus Diary” by John O'Sullivan in NATIONAL REVIEW, September 15, 2008, page 28.)
*
Our fascists are not only pathological liars but also unspeakable cowards because more often than not they don't identify themselves in discussion forums on the Internet. They adopt instead such revealing pseudonyms as “Twilight Snarl,” “Midnight Growl,” and “Morning Phlegm,” when Jack S. Avanakian would be the most appropriate designation.
When asked why he is afraid to write under his own name, one of these heroic specimens explained, “To avoid being the target of Turkish retaliation.” Which of course is utter nonsense because they hide themselves even when abusing their fellow Armenians. They hide themselves even when they write against me, as if I were some kind of mafia don with a gang of hit men at my disposal. To these gutless mice I say: Even if I were a mafia don I wouldn't waste a bullet on them because they are too contemptible to deserve anything but the words “lying cowards.”
#
P.S. Gentle reader: If you recognized yourself in what I just said, you are probably right, which is a good beginning because you are probably right for the first time in your life, and according to an old Macedonian saying (which I just made up): “He who is right once has an average chance of being right again,” -- though I wouldn't bet on it.
*
P.P.S. Tomorrow I plan to discuss about a subject that is seldom or never mentioned in Armenian forums: Turks.
#
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
***********************************************
AS I SEE IT
*****************
It is the easiest thing in the world to discriminate a reader with a genuine difference of opinion from one who likes to make a nuisance of himself. Most words in the English language have more than one dictionary definition. It is the context that determines their meaning. By deliberating choosing a definition outside the context, one may disagree with any statement, and this is exactly what smartalecks do.
*
Writing became a pleasure on the day I gave up not only all hope of popularity, fame, and fortune, but also of minimum wage.
*
One reason I suspect the motives of our academics is that they owe their position and income to “chairs” endowed by our benefactors, that is to say, the very rich, who look down at the very poor as lazy, inferior beings who will never amount to anything.
*
Speaking of blood-sucking exploiters and white trash: According to a Canadian pundit, if the McCain-Palin ticket wins, it will be the triumph of the very rich and the white trash – a clear-cut case of politics making strange bedfellows. That's the dark side of the situation. And now the Pollyanna side: If McCain and Palin win, they will usher in a golden age of political satire, the White House will become the stage of a perpetual sitcom, and they will be an endless source of inspiration to stand-up comedians.
*
All Armenian political parties are alike in at least two important respects: (one) none of them represents the majority, and (two) all of them are more like clubs of mutual admiration on the outside and a vipers' nest on the inside.
*
I promised to write about Turks and I kept my promise because there is a Turk in all of us.
#
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
***********************************************
MARX
*****************
Many nasty things have been said against philosophy by philomorons. But consider the case of Karl Marx who single-handed (with a little help from Plato, Hegel, and Engels) reshaped the worldview of billions of people from China to Cuba, and with it, the political map of the world.
And Marx was wrong.
Now then, imagine if you can the damage a philosopher who is right can inflict on mankind and tremble.
*
NAREGATSI
****************************
Only Armenians who have not read a single line by Naregatsi think of me as anti-Armenian, or too self-critical or analytical. There is more self-criticism in a single page by Naregatsi than in everything I have written so far.
Sartre said “Hell is other people.”
Naregatsi could have echoed Flaubert's “Bovary c'est moi,” by saying “L'enfer c'est moi.”
To Dante, hell is an operatic horror show.
To Naregatsi, it's an invisible place deep within us.
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of God is within you.”
Naregatsi says, “So is the Devil's Empire.”
*
DEFINITION
******************************
Literature: Art irritating life.
*
SHAKESPEAREA & CO.
****************************************
In Shakespeare, we have the confident voice of a rising empire;
in Milton, one of the most eloquent defenders of free speech;
in Narekatsi, the moans and ululations of a disintegrating kingdom;
in Sylva Kaputikian, a political opportunist and dupe
who operated on the assumption that Sovietism was the universal religion of the future;
in Gostan Zarian, the whole gamut of Armenianism:
from intense nationalism bordering on chauvinism
to disenchantment, resignation, rage, and the silence of despair and disgust.
#

[arabaliozian]

Marx

Thursday, October 9, 2008
***********************************************
GENIUS KHANS
******************************
There are some Armenians so dumb that not only do they believe in their own assessment of themselves that they are offended when no one else does.
*
SUSPICION
***********************
Whenever a reader insults me anonymously, I always assume him to be either a bishop, the son of a bishop, or someone equally disreputable.
*
DECLINE AND FALL
*****************************
One way to explain the decline and fall of Armenian literature is by saying that first-rate writers and fourth-rate readers are mutually exclusive concepts.
*
THE BUSH DOCTRINE
*******************************
It has been pointed out to me on several occasions that it is wrong being rude to my critics.
Rude to my critics? Never!
As far as I can remember, I have at no time been rude to them.
Rude to kibitzers the purpose of whose oneupmanship is to take better aim when they piss on me – that's different. I don't call that being rude. I call it preemptive strike.
*
PHILISTINES
**************************
There is a familiar type of odar philistine who connects Parisians to pissoirs, Italians to pizza, and Armenians to pilaf and shish-kebab. To be fair, in this connection I should make mention of the efforts of our Turcocentric pundits who have been doing their utmost to change that false impression.
*
HUNGARIAN RHAPSODY
***********************************
Zsa Zsa Gabor: “My dad told me, 'Anything worth having is worth waiting for,' so I waited until I was fifteen.”
At which point she fell for Atatürk. That's what I call a brilliant debut.
#
Saturday, October 11, 2008
***********************************************
CONFESSIONS
**********************************
Lord Byron: “Who would write who had anything better to do?”
*
There are days when flipping hamburgers sounds like a more useful occupation to me. What could be more satisfying than feeding the hungry? It may not be as good as the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, granted. But it comes damn close to it. My only consolation: any writer who is unanimously rejected by partisan as well as non-partisan editors and reviled by garbage-mouth readers can't be all bad.
*
BEAN-COUNTERS
***************************
I can understand laymen not reading the small print and being taken in by predatory lenders. What about chief executive officers and their small armies of advisers, assistants, accountants, and lawyers? What were they up to beside counting beans and pulling their dicks? If they too were taken in by cunning operators, how to explain the fact that they came out on top? The stench of conspiracy is so powerful that it would make a Bolshevik out of Senator McCarthy if he were alive.
*
THE REALITY PRINCIPLE
*******************************************
Some people are so outrageously wrong that they don’t have to be corrected. Sooner or later life, facts, the reality principle will speak to them much louder than any logical argument or appeal to common sense and decency.
#