from my notebooks

Thursday, January 10, 2008
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THE ART OF READING
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There are three rules for being a good pianist: practice, practice, and practice. There is only one very easy rule for being a good reader: stop reading when the book bores you -- stop reading even if the author is the Good Lord Himself, and I dare anyone to read the final pages of EXODUS and the first pages of LEVITICUS without yawning.
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DEMOCRACY RUN AMOK
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The Internet is a great invention. It allows everyone an equal opportunity to express himself. A garbage-mouth teenage hooligan and a white-haired elder statesmen may post on the same forum, and what is even more astonishing, to reach an agreement. That’s what happens in an environment where closed systems of thought are dominant and free speech anathema. Writes Lance Morrow: “Sometimes it is the faithful of the churches and the mosques who need policing most of all.” Also commissars parading as editors, publishers, and forum moderators.
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ON POPULARITY
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Ever since it dawned on me that the ambition of every scribbler is to be popular, I have done my utmost to be unpopular – an enterprise easily achieved by calling a spade a spade and by writing what you see as opposed to what you pretend to see what isn’t there.
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ON BEING POSITIVE
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To expose and analyze the ugly and the incomprehensible in us may well be the most positive form of criticism. What could be more cowardly, and therefore negative, than to cover up or ignore the fact that we, as human beings, have our share of failings and that these failings have contributed mightily to our misfortunes.
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WRITERS
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Most Armenian writers today write for odars in odar languages. Some say this is a curse of our smallness. I disagree. It is rather the curse of a nation ruled by philistines for whom esthetic values and free speech are unpatriotic concepts. As recently as seventy years ago we had giants like Oshagan and Zarian who wrote in Armenian for Armenians. We don’t even have midgets today.
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Friday, January 11, 2008
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MEMO TO A TURKISH FRIEND
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Turks are warlike, and proud of the fact. Only warlike people become masters of a great empire and run it for six centuries. But are they magnanimous in victory? That is the unanswered question. To fight in defense of the territorial integrity of the Homeland may be a noble enterprise, and to emerge victorious a glorious achievement, but to do so with gallantry, that is the mark of a truly civilized nation. If the Armeno-Turkish conflict during World War I was a “war” which the Turks won, then it is up to them to have the nobility of character and generosity of spirit to admit that if in the heat of battle innocent civilians perished, they are willing to discuss the matter with their defeated adversaries and to negotiate terms with the benevolence that is becoming in a victor. Then and only then will they prove to the world that, as truly civilized people, they more than deserve to join the European Union and be seen as an integral part of the West.
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Saturday, January 12, 2008
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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Nothing bores me as much as talk of Jewishness, Turkishness, Armenishness, or any other kind of --ishness whose sole intent is to make its adherents feel good by emphasizing the positive and covering up the negative thus certifying their perennial status as dupes.
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No one can be as dangerous as the brain-dead who believes his convictions are his.
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To think and to think you are thinking are two entirely different activities.
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To our superpatriots I ask: What do you say to fellow Armenians whose favorite mantra is “Mart bidi ch’ellank”?
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Let Yanks speak of the American Dream. For us it’s the Armenian Nightmare without end and without closure (to use one of their favorite neologisms) compliments of our Turcocentric pundits.
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To reduce life to the point that one can think only of massacres: I can’t imagine anything more narrow, negative, and ultimately hateful.
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Organized religions are like loaded guns. Harmless in themselves but lethal in the hands of irresponsible people, and like drunk drivers, irresponsible people are everywhere.
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It is said that Laurence Oliver used to stand behind the curtain muttering at the audience over and over “You bastards.” Exactly my frame of mind when I take pen in hand. I am not complaining. Our bastards are my bread and butter. If it weren’t for them I would run out of inspiration and fall silent.
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"Intellect is invisible to the man who has none."
Arthur Schopenhauer


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