Thursday, May 29, 2008
********************************************
THE POWER AND THE GLORY
**************************************************
If you think I am being too tough on our politicians, I say, no one can be tough enough on them. If I am wrong, sooner or later I will be exposed just as another ignoramus, one among many. But if I am right (and they are wrong) the result may be countless innocent victims.
*
The blunders of politicians are like cities set on a hill: they cannot be hidden. One reason politicians get involved in education is to rewrite history and to misrepresent their defeats as moral victories.
*
Politicians have been persecuting and victimizing intellectuals ever since the trial and execution of Socrates 2500 years ago. Now then, name a single intellectual who has victimized a politician.
*
Since they cannot recreate the world in their own image, politicians try to reshape our perception of reality. And they succeed, but only up to a point. That's because they cannot fool all the people all the time. They may have the power, but they don't have the glory, and that is what makes them intolerant of dissent.
#
Friday, May 30, 2008
*********************************************
RANDOM THOUGHTS
****************************************
If your income is ten times that of another, the temptation to think you may be ten times smarter than he can be overwhelming. My advice: resist it. You may be ten times more ruthless, greedy, lucky, or even dishonest (Plato is wonderful on this point) –none of which has anything to do with your or his IQ.
*
If killing in the name of patriotism is right, what about lying? Why should my patriotism be good and my enemy's bad? If love makes us blind to the point of self-deception, what about hate?
*
What doesn't kill you may make you paranoid.
*
If you believe God to be almighty and all-knowing and if He tells you to kill your only son who has harmed no one, would you do it? (For an answer, see GENESIS 22:1).
*
Until very recently, and to some extent even today, many white Americans think of blacks as inferior, and neither the word of God (all men are brothers) nor that of their Constitution (all men are created equal) can convince them otherwise. All of which may suggest that, in a democracy, power may be on the side of the majority, but not truth.
#
May 31, 2008
***************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
******************************************
“I am a better writer than you,” an anonymous readers informs me. Anyone can be a better writer than me, provided of course he first learns how to read.
*
If you say anything in your favor, even if you speak the truth, most people will suspect you are lying.
*
To say, “I don't believe in criticism” is criticism. No doubt those who condemned Socrates to death did not think of themselves as critics,
*
The aim of propaganda is to raise a wall between reality and our perception of it. Even when politicians speak the truth, they don't speak the whole truth for the simple reason that the whole truth exists only in the mind of God.
*
A fool preaching patriotism: does he thereby cease being a fool?
*
No one is infallible but some
love to wallow in their own fallibility.
#
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
patriotism
Sunday, May 25, 2008
**********
PATRIOTISM & RELATED ATROCITIES
**********
Some of the nastiest human beings I have had the misfortune to deal with are or pretend to be dedicated Armenian patriots. I am also personally acquainted with Turks who are more tolerant and civilized that some Armenians. Sooner or later we shall have to come to terms with the fact that collectively we are not as good as we think we are to the same degree that Turks are not as bad as we have been led to believe. Very much like Turks, Armenians are first and foremost individuals and to generalize is to simplify the complexities of reality. Nations and by extension national identity are artificial labels created by ambitious politicians whose central concern is power. Therefore to speak of Turks and Armenians is misleading. We should speak instead of human beings who as a result of factors beyond their control or motivated by the instinct of self-preservation, identify themselves with a group in whose midst they find themselves. This may explain why some of the most patriotic and nationalist Armenian leaders are either the offspring of mixed marriages or see nothing objectionable in intermarriage.
#
Monday, May 26, 2008
******************************************
STORIES WITHOUT A MORAL
*************************************************
Earthquakes in China, cyclones in Myanmar, tornadoes in America, and thousands of innocent victims: a story without a moral. Perhaps that’s what life is: a story without a moral. What is morality if not the wishful thinking of the powerless? As losers, we use morality to chastise our enemies, but from a position to strength we cover up our own immorality. Whom do we fool? Ourselves and no one else. When it comes to deception, we are our own most consistent, dependable, and faithful dupes.
*
You cannot argue with a man who has somehow convinced himself that (a) he is smarter; (b) he knows better; (c) he is better.
***
Some of my readers are critics because they cannot be executioners.
*
When a reader calls me names and resorts to insults, I cannot help suspecting that what he is attempting to do is drag me down to a place where he will have the upper hand. If I don’t reply in kind it’s not because I am a good Christian willing to turn the other cheek but because I don’t feel at home in the gutter.
#
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
*****************************************
THE REST IS PROPAGANDA
***********************************************
Combine a passive or apathetic nation with an incompetent leadership and the result will be Armenian history.
*
An incompetent politician may be defined as a lawmaker who has no respect for the law, or a judge who has no taste for justice.
*
When the going gets tough, the smart Armenian emigrates.
*
Buddhist saying: “Foolish friends are worse than wise enemies.” Likewise, incompetent leaders are worse than ruthless and bloodthirsty oppressors.
*
Balzac: “Nature makes only dull animals. We owe the fool to society.”
*
Kant [on the difference between ignorance and stupidity]: “There is no cure for stupidity.”
*
Albert Camus: “Hell is a special favor reserved for those who have asked for it insistently.”
#
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
*********************************************
DEATH WISH
*******************************
Emigration, alienation, assimilation -- to our “betters” and assorted riffraff they mean only one thing: one less malcontent, dissident, or critic. Zarian was wrong when he said our politicians are useless. The situation is worse. Much worse. Our politicians are megalomaniacal mental midgets driven by death wish. They preach survival but practice suicide. Preaching one thing and practicing another – so what else is new, you may well ask.
You need a license to drive a truck. No such requirement to lead a nation. Once upon a time no one saw anything remotely questionable in barbers practicing medicine. When it comes to political leadership, we continue to be at the mercy of executioners parading as barbers, who cannot even give you a shave without administering the death of a thousand cuts.
#
**********
PATRIOTISM & RELATED ATROCITIES
**********
Some of the nastiest human beings I have had the misfortune to deal with are or pretend to be dedicated Armenian patriots. I am also personally acquainted with Turks who are more tolerant and civilized that some Armenians. Sooner or later we shall have to come to terms with the fact that collectively we are not as good as we think we are to the same degree that Turks are not as bad as we have been led to believe. Very much like Turks, Armenians are first and foremost individuals and to generalize is to simplify the complexities of reality. Nations and by extension national identity are artificial labels created by ambitious politicians whose central concern is power. Therefore to speak of Turks and Armenians is misleading. We should speak instead of human beings who as a result of factors beyond their control or motivated by the instinct of self-preservation, identify themselves with a group in whose midst they find themselves. This may explain why some of the most patriotic and nationalist Armenian leaders are either the offspring of mixed marriages or see nothing objectionable in intermarriage.
#
Monday, May 26, 2008
******************************************
STORIES WITHOUT A MORAL
*************************************************
Earthquakes in China, cyclones in Myanmar, tornadoes in America, and thousands of innocent victims: a story without a moral. Perhaps that’s what life is: a story without a moral. What is morality if not the wishful thinking of the powerless? As losers, we use morality to chastise our enemies, but from a position to strength we cover up our own immorality. Whom do we fool? Ourselves and no one else. When it comes to deception, we are our own most consistent, dependable, and faithful dupes.
*
You cannot argue with a man who has somehow convinced himself that (a) he is smarter; (b) he knows better; (c) he is better.
***
Some of my readers are critics because they cannot be executioners.
*
When a reader calls me names and resorts to insults, I cannot help suspecting that what he is attempting to do is drag me down to a place where he will have the upper hand. If I don’t reply in kind it’s not because I am a good Christian willing to turn the other cheek but because I don’t feel at home in the gutter.
#
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
*****************************************
THE REST IS PROPAGANDA
***********************************************
Combine a passive or apathetic nation with an incompetent leadership and the result will be Armenian history.
*
An incompetent politician may be defined as a lawmaker who has no respect for the law, or a judge who has no taste for justice.
*
When the going gets tough, the smart Armenian emigrates.
*
Buddhist saying: “Foolish friends are worse than wise enemies.” Likewise, incompetent leaders are worse than ruthless and bloodthirsty oppressors.
*
Balzac: “Nature makes only dull animals. We owe the fool to society.”
*
Kant [on the difference between ignorance and stupidity]: “There is no cure for stupidity.”
*
Albert Camus: “Hell is a special favor reserved for those who have asked for it insistently.”
#
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
*********************************************
DEATH WISH
*******************************
Emigration, alienation, assimilation -- to our “betters” and assorted riffraff they mean only one thing: one less malcontent, dissident, or critic. Zarian was wrong when he said our politicians are useless. The situation is worse. Much worse. Our politicians are megalomaniacal mental midgets driven by death wish. They preach survival but practice suicide. Preaching one thing and practicing another – so what else is new, you may well ask.
You need a license to drive a truck. No such requirement to lead a nation. Once upon a time no one saw anything remotely questionable in barbers practicing medicine. When it comes to political leadership, we continue to be at the mercy of executioners parading as barbers, who cannot even give you a shave without administering the death of a thousand cuts.
#
Saturday, May 24, 2008
shop talk
Thursday, May 22, 2008
*******************************************
MORE SHOP TALK
************************************
After the Genocide, the greatest calamity that has befallen Armenians is the Turcocentric ghazetaji who can think of Armenians only as victims of Turks. In my view, however, long before Armenians were victimized by Turks, they were victimized by their fellow Armenians, and they continue to be to this day.
*
To allow only one side of the story to be told and repeated again and again for a century is another way of moronizing a nation.
*
You want to play it safe? Be a dupe among dupes and a fool among fools.
*
The real challenge for a writer is not to be deep or original but to deserve and earn his readers’ trust. As for depth and originality: the Bible and Plato have exhausted these branches of literary endeavor.
*
T.S. Eliot: “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
#
Friday, May 23, 2008
**********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
Forgiveness is not something that one gives and the other takes. Forgiveness is a gift that enhances our understanding of our fellow men and our own evil impulses.
*
To question the validity of an assertion is not the same as asserting its contradiction.
*
In everything we write, we confess. In everything that we analyze, we analyze ourselves.
*
One advantage in having a strange name is that telemarketers have trouble pronouncing it so that you feel justified in saying “Nobody by that name here.”
*
Genocide, even the death of a single innocent human being, is too important to be contaminated by propaganda. This may well explain my instinctive hostility towards our Turcocentric ghazetajis.
*
Bertrand Russell: “Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”
*
William Goldman: “Life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all.
#
Saturday, May 24, 2008
********************************************
HISTORIANS
*****************************
Nationalism and historiography might as well be mutually exclusive concepts. What’s uppermost in the mind of a nationalist historian is the welfare of the nation even if it means the total destruction and ruin of its enemies. Nationalism reveals more about the mindset of a nationalist and less about the past. Don’t get me wrong. We can learn a great deal from nationalist historians -- a great deal except the truth. Great historians like Gibbon, Spengler, and Toynbee, who write about civilizations rather than nations, are invariably critical of their own.
*
How do you go about civilizing a nation? You don’t civilize it by repeating over and over again "the first nation to accept Christianity" or "the first nation to experience genocide in the 20th century." You civilize it by detribalizing its political parties, making its institutions more responsive and accountable to the public, and its media more tolerant of criticism and dissent. That’s how you civilize a nation.
(Who says I speak of problems but not of solutions?)
*
"You repeat yourself," I am told once in a while by critics. I suspect if I were to write a thousand times "We are the first nation to convert to Christianity," or "the first nation to experience genocide in the 20th century," nobody would complain. And why? Probably because both lines appear to be saying something positive about us, though I fail to see what’s positive about being massacred in the 20th or any other century for that matter.
#
*******************************************
MORE SHOP TALK
************************************
After the Genocide, the greatest calamity that has befallen Armenians is the Turcocentric ghazetaji who can think of Armenians only as victims of Turks. In my view, however, long before Armenians were victimized by Turks, they were victimized by their fellow Armenians, and they continue to be to this day.
*
To allow only one side of the story to be told and repeated again and again for a century is another way of moronizing a nation.
*
You want to play it safe? Be a dupe among dupes and a fool among fools.
*
The real challenge for a writer is not to be deep or original but to deserve and earn his readers’ trust. As for depth and originality: the Bible and Plato have exhausted these branches of literary endeavor.
*
T.S. Eliot: “For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business.”
#
Friday, May 23, 2008
**********************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
****************************************
Forgiveness is not something that one gives and the other takes. Forgiveness is a gift that enhances our understanding of our fellow men and our own evil impulses.
*
To question the validity of an assertion is not the same as asserting its contradiction.
*
In everything we write, we confess. In everything that we analyze, we analyze ourselves.
*
One advantage in having a strange name is that telemarketers have trouble pronouncing it so that you feel justified in saying “Nobody by that name here.”
*
Genocide, even the death of a single innocent human being, is too important to be contaminated by propaganda. This may well explain my instinctive hostility towards our Turcocentric ghazetajis.
*
Bertrand Russell: “Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”
*
William Goldman: “Life isn’t fair. It’s just fairer than death, that’s all.
#
Saturday, May 24, 2008
********************************************
HISTORIANS
*****************************
Nationalism and historiography might as well be mutually exclusive concepts. What’s uppermost in the mind of a nationalist historian is the welfare of the nation even if it means the total destruction and ruin of its enemies. Nationalism reveals more about the mindset of a nationalist and less about the past. Don’t get me wrong. We can learn a great deal from nationalist historians -- a great deal except the truth. Great historians like Gibbon, Spengler, and Toynbee, who write about civilizations rather than nations, are invariably critical of their own.
*
How do you go about civilizing a nation? You don’t civilize it by repeating over and over again "the first nation to accept Christianity" or "the first nation to experience genocide in the 20th century." You civilize it by detribalizing its political parties, making its institutions more responsive and accountable to the public, and its media more tolerant of criticism and dissent. That’s how you civilize a nation.
(Who says I speak of problems but not of solutions?)
*
"You repeat yourself," I am told once in a while by critics. I suspect if I were to write a thousand times "We are the first nation to convert to Christianity," or "the first nation to experience genocide in the 20th century," nobody would complain. And why? Probably because both lines appear to be saying something positive about us, though I fail to see what’s positive about being massacred in the 20th or any other century for that matter.
#
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
diary
Sunday, May 18, 2008
********************************************
A BROTHER
***************************
He is that most repellent of all creatures – an ignorant, loudmouth, self-satisfied, smart-ass know-it-all, in short, myself when young. He makes me think of the octogenarian born-again Armenian friend who once told me he hates Turks not because they tried to exterminate us but because they failed to do so. Instead of analyzing our catastrophic blunders, he brags, speechifies, and sermonizes in the name of God and Country—a God he knows nothing about and a Country that he pretends to value more than his fellow countrymen.
*
In a letter from an Armenian poet: "After writing for Armenians all my life, I am beginning to hate the Turks less."
*
Ruben Ter-Minassian: "Our cultural achievements and intellectual abilities may be superior to those of our neighbors, but without solidarity we are bound to be defeated, victimized, and exterminated."
*
Stanislaw Lec: "Only the dead can be resurrected. It’s more difficult with the living."
*
Search for the truth not in order to find it but in order to uncover ten thousand lies.
#
Monday, May 19, 2008
**************************************
FROM MY DIARY
*****************************************
Successful crooks appear more honest than truly honest men.
*
Politicians who profess family values see nothing morally inconsistent in screwing the nation.
*
Jean Rostand: “The persistence of an opinion proves nothing in its favor. Astrologers still exist.”
*
It is a waste of time talking to someone from whom you can learn nothing and to whom you can teach even less.
*
If a little knowledge is dangerous, we all live on borrowed time.
*
Kant [on the difference between ignorance and stupidity]: “There is no cure for stupidity.”
*
For our bosses and bishops, literature has only one purpose: to cover up their lies, and to misrepresent their blunders as triumphs of statesmanship.
#
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
*************************************
ABOUT KEMALISM
*********************************
Idols are the surest symptoms of a society’s backwardness. Stalin in Russia, Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Mao in China, Fidel in Cuba, and Ataturk in Turkey: of these only Ataturk has lost none of his initial hold on the masses. The average Turk continues to be brought up (i.e. brainwashed) to believe Kemal is the Father of the Nation because he saved Turkey from the brink of annihilation. That may or may not be true, but it is equally true that most of Turkey’s problems today – among them the introduction of nationalism in an essentially multicultural and cosmopolitan environment, the forceful rejection of traditional values, the festering Armenian question, the irredentism of the Kurds, the fiasco surrounding the application for membership in the EU, a junta’s shadowy presence and quasi-veto powers, the rise of fundamentalism, laws that curtail free speech, among other violations of fundamental human rights – may be traced to Kemalist dogmas. Turkey will be born again as a truly civilized, progressive, and democratic nation on the day it discards Kemalism to the dustbin of history the way Russia, Germany, China, and Italy rejected their fascist idols.
*
Why I write the way I do? Am I foolish and arrogant enough to think that I can change anyone’s mind? Certainly not. I write by way of wondering why is it that, that which is clearly visible to me should remain shrouded in impenetrable darkness to others who may well be smarter than I am.
*
It happens in life all the time. A solution that worked in stage one becomes a recipe for failure in stage two.
*
Power corrupts and ideologies decline because they fall into the hands of opportunists who care more about their privileges than the welfare of the people. If Kemal were alive today, would he declare himself a Kemalist?
#
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
*********************************************
DIARY
**************************
There are three kinds of men: those who think before they speak, those who think as they speak, and those who think after they have spoken. But they all belong to a minority. The majority of men don’t think.
*
Who says we cannot agree on anything? For more than a thousand years now we have consistently agreed to remain divided.
*
In a democracy, truth is not a source of terror because it can be easily buried beneath an avalanche of harmless half-truths and pleasant lies.
*
We will mature as a nation only when we take ideas as seriously as money.
*
Anonymous: "You can always count on a rich man’s head to be as empty as an honest man’s pocket."
*
Galileo Galilei: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
#
********************************************
A BROTHER
***************************
He is that most repellent of all creatures – an ignorant, loudmouth, self-satisfied, smart-ass know-it-all, in short, myself when young. He makes me think of the octogenarian born-again Armenian friend who once told me he hates Turks not because they tried to exterminate us but because they failed to do so. Instead of analyzing our catastrophic blunders, he brags, speechifies, and sermonizes in the name of God and Country—a God he knows nothing about and a Country that he pretends to value more than his fellow countrymen.
*
In a letter from an Armenian poet: "After writing for Armenians all my life, I am beginning to hate the Turks less."
*
Ruben Ter-Minassian: "Our cultural achievements and intellectual abilities may be superior to those of our neighbors, but without solidarity we are bound to be defeated, victimized, and exterminated."
*
Stanislaw Lec: "Only the dead can be resurrected. It’s more difficult with the living."
*
Search for the truth not in order to find it but in order to uncover ten thousand lies.
#
Monday, May 19, 2008
**************************************
FROM MY DIARY
*****************************************
Successful crooks appear more honest than truly honest men.
*
Politicians who profess family values see nothing morally inconsistent in screwing the nation.
*
Jean Rostand: “The persistence of an opinion proves nothing in its favor. Astrologers still exist.”
*
It is a waste of time talking to someone from whom you can learn nothing and to whom you can teach even less.
*
If a little knowledge is dangerous, we all live on borrowed time.
*
Kant [on the difference between ignorance and stupidity]: “There is no cure for stupidity.”
*
For our bosses and bishops, literature has only one purpose: to cover up their lies, and to misrepresent their blunders as triumphs of statesmanship.
#
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
*************************************
ABOUT KEMALISM
*********************************
Idols are the surest symptoms of a society’s backwardness. Stalin in Russia, Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy, Mao in China, Fidel in Cuba, and Ataturk in Turkey: of these only Ataturk has lost none of his initial hold on the masses. The average Turk continues to be brought up (i.e. brainwashed) to believe Kemal is the Father of the Nation because he saved Turkey from the brink of annihilation. That may or may not be true, but it is equally true that most of Turkey’s problems today – among them the introduction of nationalism in an essentially multicultural and cosmopolitan environment, the forceful rejection of traditional values, the festering Armenian question, the irredentism of the Kurds, the fiasco surrounding the application for membership in the EU, a junta’s shadowy presence and quasi-veto powers, the rise of fundamentalism, laws that curtail free speech, among other violations of fundamental human rights – may be traced to Kemalist dogmas. Turkey will be born again as a truly civilized, progressive, and democratic nation on the day it discards Kemalism to the dustbin of history the way Russia, Germany, China, and Italy rejected their fascist idols.
*
Why I write the way I do? Am I foolish and arrogant enough to think that I can change anyone’s mind? Certainly not. I write by way of wondering why is it that, that which is clearly visible to me should remain shrouded in impenetrable darkness to others who may well be smarter than I am.
*
It happens in life all the time. A solution that worked in stage one becomes a recipe for failure in stage two.
*
Power corrupts and ideologies decline because they fall into the hands of opportunists who care more about their privileges than the welfare of the people. If Kemal were alive today, would he declare himself a Kemalist?
#
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
*********************************************
DIARY
**************************
There are three kinds of men: those who think before they speak, those who think as they speak, and those who think after they have spoken. But they all belong to a minority. The majority of men don’t think.
*
Who says we cannot agree on anything? For more than a thousand years now we have consistently agreed to remain divided.
*
In a democracy, truth is not a source of terror because it can be easily buried beneath an avalanche of harmless half-truths and pleasant lies.
*
We will mature as a nation only when we take ideas as seriously as money.
*
Anonymous: "You can always count on a rich man’s head to be as empty as an honest man’s pocket."
*
Galileo Galilei: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.”
#
Saturday, May 17, 2008
shop talk
Thursday, May 15, 2008
*********************************************
SHOP TALK
*******************************
The trouble with me as a writer is that, unlike our Turcocentric ghazetajis who write about nothing else but massacres, bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians, atrocities, and unspeakable crimes against humanity, I have an eye only for the dark side of life. I stress the negative in human nature and completely ignore the positive.
*
An Armenian poetess calls to inform me she is donating the royalties of her next book to Etchmiadzin. I don’t have the heart to tell her I have been in this business for a quarter of a century and I have never heard of an Armenian writer who has made two cents from royalties. But I suspect she already knows. Armenians have an amazing gift for pretending not to know the obvious.
*
In a letter from a friend: "If, as you say, Armenian literature is a dead end, why not give up writing?"
I write for two totally non-literary reasons: to fight boredom and to acquire friends; and with every book I have published, I have acquired a new friend; also (alas!) two, and sometimes even twenty-two, enemies.
#
Friday, May 16, 2008
***************************************
RANDOM THOUGHTS
********************************
Chekhov: "Love, friendship, respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something." Our leadership has known this for some time; hence, their unspoken slogan: "There is no business like shoah business."
*
What divides a nation is neither theology nor ideology but leaders who consider their own powers and privileges more important than the survival of the nation.
*
Where there is an Armenian church you will also find a wealthy dupe with a guilty conscience.
*
A fellow Armenian (a white-haired no-nonsense type) knocks on my door, introduces himself, barges in, and demands to know if I am really an atheist. I tell him, I don’t believe in he god of our priests. He is too puzzled by my answer to pursue the matter. What I fail to add is that, the true atheist is he who uses someone else’s crucifixion to make a comfortable living.
*
If a man is open to ruin, he will be ruined by success as easily as by failure.
#
Saturday, May 17, 2008
***************************************
NOTES / COMMENTS
*******************************
If we cannot trust experts, historians, religious leaders and politicians on the grounds that they contradict one another, whom can we trust? The answer must be obvious: nobody! Not even our own judgment. We may however mistrust less those who deal in doubts and probabilities as opposed to certainties and dogmas.
*
To be against objectivity is to be for deception.
*
Love of God and Country become pathological aberrations when they find expression only in hatred for the enemy and fellow countrymen who do not share our hatred.
*
Honesty is a career in which the failures outnumber the successes.
*
It’s because they want to silence me that I keep talking. On the day they shut up, I will sing my swan song.
#
*********************************************
SHOP TALK
*******************************
The trouble with me as a writer is that, unlike our Turcocentric ghazetajis who write about nothing else but massacres, bloodthirsty Asiatic barbarians, atrocities, and unspeakable crimes against humanity, I have an eye only for the dark side of life. I stress the negative in human nature and completely ignore the positive.
*
An Armenian poetess calls to inform me she is donating the royalties of her next book to Etchmiadzin. I don’t have the heart to tell her I have been in this business for a quarter of a century and I have never heard of an Armenian writer who has made two cents from royalties. But I suspect she already knows. Armenians have an amazing gift for pretending not to know the obvious.
*
In a letter from a friend: "If, as you say, Armenian literature is a dead end, why not give up writing?"
I write for two totally non-literary reasons: to fight boredom and to acquire friends; and with every book I have published, I have acquired a new friend; also (alas!) two, and sometimes even twenty-two, enemies.
#
Friday, May 16, 2008
***************************************
RANDOM THOUGHTS
********************************
Chekhov: "Love, friendship, respect do not unite people as much as common hatred for something." Our leadership has known this for some time; hence, their unspoken slogan: "There is no business like shoah business."
*
What divides a nation is neither theology nor ideology but leaders who consider their own powers and privileges more important than the survival of the nation.
*
Where there is an Armenian church you will also find a wealthy dupe with a guilty conscience.
*
A fellow Armenian (a white-haired no-nonsense type) knocks on my door, introduces himself, barges in, and demands to know if I am really an atheist. I tell him, I don’t believe in he god of our priests. He is too puzzled by my answer to pursue the matter. What I fail to add is that, the true atheist is he who uses someone else’s crucifixion to make a comfortable living.
*
If a man is open to ruin, he will be ruined by success as easily as by failure.
#
Saturday, May 17, 2008
***************************************
NOTES / COMMENTS
*******************************
If we cannot trust experts, historians, religious leaders and politicians on the grounds that they contradict one another, whom can we trust? The answer must be obvious: nobody! Not even our own judgment. We may however mistrust less those who deal in doubts and probabilities as opposed to certainties and dogmas.
*
To be against objectivity is to be for deception.
*
Love of God and Country become pathological aberrations when they find expression only in hatred for the enemy and fellow countrymen who do not share our hatred.
*
Honesty is a career in which the failures outnumber the successes.
*
It’s because they want to silence me that I keep talking. On the day they shut up, I will sing my swan song.
#
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
reflections
Sunday, May 11, 2008
*******************************************
DEPRESSING OBSERVATIONS
******************************************
Our Turcocentric ghazetajis are interested in Armenians only as victims of Turks, which is a what’s done is done and cannot be undone situation. I too am interested in Armenians as victims but only as victims of fellow Armenians, which is an ongoing process. We cannot resurrect the dead but we can remind our dividers that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and whereas the Turks had a reason for trying to exterminate us, they (our bosses and bishops) have none!
*
Life is short, art long, and trash abundant. The very least we can do is not to add to the abundance.
*
The most pernicious prejudice is to think that we have none.
*
To commit a blunder – nothing easier. To admit it – nothing more difficult.
#
Monday, May 12, 2008
*******************************************
FIRST LINES
******************************
SPEECH
**************
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Like you, I too was exposed to a great many sermons and speeches in my formative years. I know something I didn’t know then: they were all empty verbiage. Assuming we have a question here, what is the answer? I have no idea. I think Naregatsi (our Dante and Shakespeare combined) came close to a tentative answer when he decided to spend the rest of his life in a monastery meditating on his failings.
*
CONFESSIONS
***************************
I have been a source of disappointment to a great many people, beginning with myself. This may explain why I may never deliver a speech or write a memoir.
*
ON REVISIONISM
********************************
At the turn of the last century, the Ottoman Empire was like a wounded tiger: in its effort to assure its own survival, it struck indiscriminately at those it saw as its enemies without making an effort to separate the innocent from the guilty. What’s uppermost in the mind of a Turkish revisionist today is the memory of the wound rather than the innocent victims.
#
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
*********************************************
THE CIRCASSIAN CONTRIBUTION
***************************************************
W.H. Auden: “Those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return.”
*
In the 19th century Russia conducted a long genocidal war against the Muslim tribes of the Caucasus. Armenians played a key role in this campaign as negotiators, translators, and soldiers. When the war was over, the defeated Caucasian tribes took refuge in Turkey. It was the offspring of these survivors for whom revenge is an article of faith and a religious commandment who in 1915 joined forces with the Kurds to massacre Armenians.
For more on the Russian campaign in the Caucasus, see Lesley Blanch’s SABRES OF PARADISE, and Tolstoy’s HADJI MURAD. This second is a work of historical fiction based on documented facts written near the end of Tolstoy’s life. Lesley Blanch’s fascinating work is a thoroughly researched study and the only historical work I have read and enjoyed three times.
#
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
*********************************************
ASKING QUESTIONS
**********************************
What do they know of the Genocide if only the Genocide know? To fully understand something, anything, it is necessary to know and understand many other things. Historic occurrences are like plants with deep roots some of which may go back to the beginning of time.
*
Why is it that we never get tired of speaking of what they did to us but we at no time ask, why is it that we made ourselves vulnerable? Is it because we may not like the answer? Is it because if we understood the answer we may no longer be justified in assuming a holier-than-thou stance? And worse, much worse! Is it because if we understood the answer we would also understand that what they did to us we are doing to ourselves? – that is to say, committing our own brand of “jermag chart” (white slaughter) on two fronts – assimilation in the Diaspora and exodus from the Homeland? Why is it that when it comes to our own incompetence, corruption, dogmatism, intolerance, and divisions, we like to speak of “social and cultural conditions beyond our control”? What is the difference between their denialism and our own? Why this stubborn refusal to face facts and accept responsibility? Am I making assertions I cannot prove? No, I am only asking questions.
#
*******************************************
DEPRESSING OBSERVATIONS
******************************************
Our Turcocentric ghazetajis are interested in Armenians only as victims of Turks, which is a what’s done is done and cannot be undone situation. I too am interested in Armenians as victims but only as victims of fellow Armenians, which is an ongoing process. We cannot resurrect the dead but we can remind our dividers that a house divided against itself cannot stand; and whereas the Turks had a reason for trying to exterminate us, they (our bosses and bishops) have none!
*
Life is short, art long, and trash abundant. The very least we can do is not to add to the abundance.
*
The most pernicious prejudice is to think that we have none.
*
To commit a blunder – nothing easier. To admit it – nothing more difficult.
#
Monday, May 12, 2008
*******************************************
FIRST LINES
******************************
SPEECH
**************
Ladies and Gentlemen:
Like you, I too was exposed to a great many sermons and speeches in my formative years. I know something I didn’t know then: they were all empty verbiage. Assuming we have a question here, what is the answer? I have no idea. I think Naregatsi (our Dante and Shakespeare combined) came close to a tentative answer when he decided to spend the rest of his life in a monastery meditating on his failings.
*
CONFESSIONS
***************************
I have been a source of disappointment to a great many people, beginning with myself. This may explain why I may never deliver a speech or write a memoir.
*
ON REVISIONISM
********************************
At the turn of the last century, the Ottoman Empire was like a wounded tiger: in its effort to assure its own survival, it struck indiscriminately at those it saw as its enemies without making an effort to separate the innocent from the guilty. What’s uppermost in the mind of a Turkish revisionist today is the memory of the wound rather than the innocent victims.
#
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
*********************************************
THE CIRCASSIAN CONTRIBUTION
***************************************************
W.H. Auden: “Those to whom evil is done / Do evil in return.”
*
In the 19th century Russia conducted a long genocidal war against the Muslim tribes of the Caucasus. Armenians played a key role in this campaign as negotiators, translators, and soldiers. When the war was over, the defeated Caucasian tribes took refuge in Turkey. It was the offspring of these survivors for whom revenge is an article of faith and a religious commandment who in 1915 joined forces with the Kurds to massacre Armenians.
For more on the Russian campaign in the Caucasus, see Lesley Blanch’s SABRES OF PARADISE, and Tolstoy’s HADJI MURAD. This second is a work of historical fiction based on documented facts written near the end of Tolstoy’s life. Lesley Blanch’s fascinating work is a thoroughly researched study and the only historical work I have read and enjoyed three times.
#
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
*********************************************
ASKING QUESTIONS
**********************************
What do they know of the Genocide if only the Genocide know? To fully understand something, anything, it is necessary to know and understand many other things. Historic occurrences are like plants with deep roots some of which may go back to the beginning of time.
*
Why is it that we never get tired of speaking of what they did to us but we at no time ask, why is it that we made ourselves vulnerable? Is it because we may not like the answer? Is it because if we understood the answer we may no longer be justified in assuming a holier-than-thou stance? And worse, much worse! Is it because if we understood the answer we would also understand that what they did to us we are doing to ourselves? – that is to say, committing our own brand of “jermag chart” (white slaughter) on two fronts – assimilation in the Diaspora and exodus from the Homeland? Why is it that when it comes to our own incompetence, corruption, dogmatism, intolerance, and divisions, we like to speak of “social and cultural conditions beyond our control”? What is the difference between their denialism and our own? Why this stubborn refusal to face facts and accept responsibility? Am I making assertions I cannot prove? No, I am only asking questions.
#
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Kazan
Thursday, May 08, 2008
********************************************
KAZAN IN ISTANBUL
**********************************
While in Istanbul, Kazan writes in his memoirs (ELIA KAZAN: A LIFE, page 548), “I was heralded as the famous man from Anatolia who denied absolutely that he was Armenian. There was no mention that I was a Greek.”
Speaking of a recent riot, a fellow Greek explains: “They [the authorities] brought several hundred criminals from the interior, gave them plenty raki, the cheap kind, a bottle to each man, put them on the boat to Istanbul, and told them, ‘Go ahead, the city is yours. Take what you want, so long as it’s Greek or Armenian.’” (page 550). Elsewhere (page 558) Kazan quotes an angry Greek woman saying: “They [Turks] are animals, who tasted our blood many times and want more, like animals.”
The scandal is not that criminals behave like criminals, with the blessings of the authorities, but that respectable men say, such things don’t happen in a civilized country like Turkey. And I doubt very much if the orders to riot, or any other relevant documents, are housed in state archives for future scholars who specialize in the study of riots.
Riots happen everywhere, of course, even in the most civilized countries in the world. But I doubt very much if they do so with the encouragement and authorization of the state for the simple reason that as a rule riots in civilized countries are spontaneous eruptions by minorities against the state.
#
Friday, May 09, 2008
**********************************************
MEMO
******************************************
After reading some of my critical articles, a Turkish friend assumes I have Kemalist sympathies. This is the very same mistake Armenian readers make when they accuse me of anti-Armenianism. If I am critical of intolerance, that doesn’t mean I am for Turkish or any other kind of intolerance.
Half-truths and lies come in all colors, sizes, and shapes and they are equally pernicious.
All ideologies and religions come with good intentions. Their true aim is to expand human consciousness by making us aware of the fact that we are not the alpha and omega of existence. But eventually they degenerate into closed systems by pretending to be the alpha and omega of human perception. That’s when critics and dissidents take it upon themselves to remind us we have been duped into thinking truth or god is on our side.
#
Saturday, May 10, 2008
**********************************************
GREED
**********************
Literary prizes and grants: I have had my share of them, but mostly from Canadian sources. If I am ever awarded an Armenian prize
I will say: “I accept the cash but I reject the honor.”
The trouble with our organizations (and the bosses, bishops and benefactors who control them) is that they are interested in art and I am interested only in money.
*
To be verbally abused by riffraff is almost to be praised.
*
To join a party and to view the opposition as the source of all evil must be an irresistible temptation to all simple-minded dupes.
*
Why is it that we like to explain and justify our shortcomings by mentioning the shortcomings of others? Imagine if you can a murderer or thief pleading not guilty in a court of law on grounds that all nations have their share of murderers and thieves.
#
********************************************
KAZAN IN ISTANBUL
**********************************
While in Istanbul, Kazan writes in his memoirs (ELIA KAZAN: A LIFE, page 548), “I was heralded as the famous man from Anatolia who denied absolutely that he was Armenian. There was no mention that I was a Greek.”
Speaking of a recent riot, a fellow Greek explains: “They [the authorities] brought several hundred criminals from the interior, gave them plenty raki, the cheap kind, a bottle to each man, put them on the boat to Istanbul, and told them, ‘Go ahead, the city is yours. Take what you want, so long as it’s Greek or Armenian.’” (page 550). Elsewhere (page 558) Kazan quotes an angry Greek woman saying: “They [Turks] are animals, who tasted our blood many times and want more, like animals.”
The scandal is not that criminals behave like criminals, with the blessings of the authorities, but that respectable men say, such things don’t happen in a civilized country like Turkey. And I doubt very much if the orders to riot, or any other relevant documents, are housed in state archives for future scholars who specialize in the study of riots.
Riots happen everywhere, of course, even in the most civilized countries in the world. But I doubt very much if they do so with the encouragement and authorization of the state for the simple reason that as a rule riots in civilized countries are spontaneous eruptions by minorities against the state.
#
Friday, May 09, 2008
**********************************************
MEMO
******************************************
After reading some of my critical articles, a Turkish friend assumes I have Kemalist sympathies. This is the very same mistake Armenian readers make when they accuse me of anti-Armenianism. If I am critical of intolerance, that doesn’t mean I am for Turkish or any other kind of intolerance.
Half-truths and lies come in all colors, sizes, and shapes and they are equally pernicious.
All ideologies and religions come with good intentions. Their true aim is to expand human consciousness by making us aware of the fact that we are not the alpha and omega of existence. But eventually they degenerate into closed systems by pretending to be the alpha and omega of human perception. That’s when critics and dissidents take it upon themselves to remind us we have been duped into thinking truth or god is on our side.
#
Saturday, May 10, 2008
**********************************************
GREED
**********************
Literary prizes and grants: I have had my share of them, but mostly from Canadian sources. If I am ever awarded an Armenian prize
I will say: “I accept the cash but I reject the honor.”
The trouble with our organizations (and the bosses, bishops and benefactors who control them) is that they are interested in art and I am interested only in money.
*
To be verbally abused by riffraff is almost to be praised.
*
To join a party and to view the opposition as the source of all evil must be an irresistible temptation to all simple-minded dupes.
*
Why is it that we like to explain and justify our shortcomings by mentioning the shortcomings of others? Imagine if you can a murderer or thief pleading not guilty in a court of law on grounds that all nations have their share of murderers and thieves.
#
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
as i see it
Sunday, May 04, 2008
*************************************************
REFLECTIONS
********************************
There are two ways to resolve a conflict: with the brain or with the gut. Human history may be said to be a tribute to the gut.
*
When I recycled nationalist propaganda, I at no time identified it as such. Self-deception begins with our choice of vocabulary.
*
Our nationalist historians tend to write what their readers would like to read. Not being dependent on our goodwill, odar historians can afford to be more objective and say things that may not be flattering to our collective ego. That’s one reason why I now find our historians unreadable.
*
My best readers are those who hate to read me because they find my ideas threatening to their comfortable view of life.
*
When you assess yourself, the chances are you will stress the positives. When others do the assessing, they will stress your negatives. The question then becomes: Who will be closer to the truth, which is more a point of reference and direction rather than an accessible and fixed concept.
*
Plot for a science fiction novel: 2984 AD. Overpopulation on the planet is such that even mild transgressions like spitting, swearing, or driving a fraction of a mile over the speed limit are considered capital offenses and punished on the spot by law enforcement brigades.
#
Monday, May 05, 2008
************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***
ON ANALYSIS
************ ********* *********
Even after the triumphs of ZAPATA, STREETCAR, ON THE WATERFRONT and EAST OF EDEN, writes Elia Kazan in his memoirs – ELIA KAZAN: A LIFE (New York, 1998) – he felt like a failure. So much so that he sought the help of a psychiatrist. He further writes that, the reason why Brando accepted to do WATERFRONT on location in New Jersey was that his analyst was in New York and he needed to see him every day.
Kazan’s final films are disasters. Brando’s films as well as private life became progressively worse. What a book one could write on the failures of analysis in America. Sartre is right: Freudian analysis, especially in its American context, has no principles. Its aim is to adjust patients to an essentially insane social order. As a result, instead of getting better they get worse. I shiver to think what would have happened to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky had they lived in 20th-century America instead of 19th-century Russia.
Kazan traces the roots of his neurosis to his Ottoman background. The only way for a Greek to survive in Istanbul was by being a sycophant and a coward, he writes, and most of his life, even in America, he was both. Elsewhere he explains that the massacres were the work not of Turkish neighbors but of outsiders who believed “you enter heaven and enjoy a beautiful houri according to how many unbelievers you’ve killed.” When he visits Turkey later in life, men line up to shake and sometimes even to kiss his hand. Comments Kazan: “I had to remind myself that my people had lived here in terror and were lucky to have escaped alive.”
#
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
**********
AS I SEE IT
**********
People are not interest to know how smart you are but how smart you think they are.
*
I was brought up to believe we were white and they were black, until I realized there is neither white nor black, only shades of gray.
*
Propaganda thrives in an environment where freedom of speech is a privilege only of the ruling classes.
*
Parallels: those who declare wars and those who die in them…the misguided fools who rise against an empire and the defenseless, law-abiding civilians who are massacred…
*
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. As for the semi-tough: they are better at hiding, speechifying, and editorializing.
#
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
****************************************
ONE-LINERS
*****************************
We cannot understand that which we hate,
*
A military defeat is also a blunder.
*
Everyone sympathizes with victims except their victimizers.
*
The first condition of patriotism is to dehumanize the enemy.
*
A fool is an open book. He confesses even as he attempts to cover up.
*
All power structures, even the most democratic, depend on the ignorance of the majority.
*
If I were to write what is expected of me, I would probably enjoy both popularity and respect, but I would have nothing but contempt for myself.
*
When I said, “The rich are going to die as surely as the poor,” my friend replied: “Yes, but the poor die every day.”
#
*************************************************
REFLECTIONS
********************************
There are two ways to resolve a conflict: with the brain or with the gut. Human history may be said to be a tribute to the gut.
*
When I recycled nationalist propaganda, I at no time identified it as such. Self-deception begins with our choice of vocabulary.
*
Our nationalist historians tend to write what their readers would like to read. Not being dependent on our goodwill, odar historians can afford to be more objective and say things that may not be flattering to our collective ego. That’s one reason why I now find our historians unreadable.
*
My best readers are those who hate to read me because they find my ideas threatening to their comfortable view of life.
*
When you assess yourself, the chances are you will stress the positives. When others do the assessing, they will stress your negatives. The question then becomes: Who will be closer to the truth, which is more a point of reference and direction rather than an accessible and fixed concept.
*
Plot for a science fiction novel: 2984 AD. Overpopulation on the planet is such that even mild transgressions like spitting, swearing, or driving a fraction of a mile over the speed limit are considered capital offenses and punished on the spot by law enforcement brigades.
#
Monday, May 05, 2008
************ ********* ********* ********* ********* ***
ON ANALYSIS
************ ********* *********
Even after the triumphs of ZAPATA, STREETCAR, ON THE WATERFRONT and EAST OF EDEN, writes Elia Kazan in his memoirs – ELIA KAZAN: A LIFE (New York, 1998) – he felt like a failure. So much so that he sought the help of a psychiatrist. He further writes that, the reason why Brando accepted to do WATERFRONT on location in New Jersey was that his analyst was in New York and he needed to see him every day.
Kazan’s final films are disasters. Brando’s films as well as private life became progressively worse. What a book one could write on the failures of analysis in America. Sartre is right: Freudian analysis, especially in its American context, has no principles. Its aim is to adjust patients to an essentially insane social order. As a result, instead of getting better they get worse. I shiver to think what would have happened to Tolstoy and Dostoevsky had they lived in 20th-century America instead of 19th-century Russia.
Kazan traces the roots of his neurosis to his Ottoman background. The only way for a Greek to survive in Istanbul was by being a sycophant and a coward, he writes, and most of his life, even in America, he was both. Elsewhere he explains that the massacres were the work not of Turkish neighbors but of outsiders who believed “you enter heaven and enjoy a beautiful houri according to how many unbelievers you’ve killed.” When he visits Turkey later in life, men line up to shake and sometimes even to kiss his hand. Comments Kazan: “I had to remind myself that my people had lived here in terror and were lucky to have escaped alive.”
#
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
**********
AS I SEE IT
**********
People are not interest to know how smart you are but how smart you think they are.
*
I was brought up to believe we were white and they were black, until I realized there is neither white nor black, only shades of gray.
*
Propaganda thrives in an environment where freedom of speech is a privilege only of the ruling classes.
*
Parallels: those who declare wars and those who die in them…the misguided fools who rise against an empire and the defenseless, law-abiding civilians who are massacred…
*
When the going gets tough, the tough get going. As for the semi-tough: they are better at hiding, speechifying, and editorializing.
#
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
****************************************
ONE-LINERS
*****************************
We cannot understand that which we hate,
*
A military defeat is also a blunder.
*
Everyone sympathizes with victims except their victimizers.
*
The first condition of patriotism is to dehumanize the enemy.
*
A fool is an open book. He confesses even as he attempts to cover up.
*
All power structures, even the most democratic, depend on the ignorance of the majority.
*
If I were to write what is expected of me, I would probably enjoy both popularity and respect, but I would have nothing but contempt for myself.
*
When I said, “The rich are going to die as surely as the poor,” my friend replied: “Yes, but the poor die every day.”
#
Saturday, May 3, 2008
reading
Thursday, May 01, 2008
************************************************
READING
*******************************
While reading THE ROUGH GUIDE TO FILM NOIR by Alexander Ballinger and Danny Graydon (New York, 2007) I am surprised to note that two of my favorite noirs – THE ROARING TWENTIES and ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, both with Jimmy Cagney, are not even mentioned.
*
Sidney Sheldon’s THE OTHER SIDE OF ME: A MEMOIR (New York, 2005) reads more like fiction than autobiography. Orwell is right: “autobiography is the most outrageous form of fiction.”
*
Edmund Wilson’s review of Saroyan’s 1946 World War II novel, THE ADVENTURES OF WESLEY JACKSON, is included in his LITERARY ESSAYS AND REVIEWS OF THE 1930s &1940s (New York, 2007). Its final sentence reads: “This is surely some of the silliest nonsense ever published by a talented writer.” Elsewhere (page 498) Wilson described Saroyan as “an agreeable mixture of San Francisco bonhomie and Armenian Christianity”—whatever that may mean (one is tempted to ask what the hell does Wilson know about Armenian Christianity?) Wilson is far more to the point when speaking of THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, he observes “…[Saroyan] achieves the feat of making and keeping us boozy without the use of alcohol and purely by the stimulus of art.”
*
In an illustrated article in LE POINT (Paris, April 10, 2008) Larry Gagosian, 62, is described as a “silver-haired playboy,” the offspring “of a modest family of Armenian origin in Los Angeles,” “a ‘killer’ in business deals,” and the multimillionaire owner of three art galleries in New York, two in London, one in Beverly Hills, and another in Rome.
#
Friday, May 02, 2008
************************************************
ON POLITICS & POLITICIANS
**************************************
There exists a wall between Turks and Armenians not because Turks and Armenians hate one another but because so far both sides have been at the mercy of politicians, that is to say, full-time professionals hate-promoters.
*
Politicians are megalomaniacs who are not masters of their own destiny but who think they can shape the fate of nations.
*
The Iron Curtain fell, the Berlin Wall was demolished, and if the Chinese Wall stands today it stands only as an expensive and useless relic.
*
The birth of imperialism: if this mountain is ours, so is the valley next to it. It follows, so is the river that irrigates the valley, and so is the source of the river.
*
If Martin Luther King had been an Armenian, he would have said, “I have a nightmare!”
*
Have I said this before? No matter. Everything that’s worth saying is worth repeating.
#
Saturday, May 03, 2008
**********************************************
ON THE HUMAN CONDITION
********************************************
Like an insect caught in a spider’s web, we live in an invisible network of human relationships and values, which existed long before we were born. The more freely we move in this environment, the more certain our fate of being captured and immobilized.
*
Desmond Tutu: “To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest.” If this were true, all prisons would be abolished.
*
I once asked a theologian what he thought of Gandhi’s definition of God as Truth, and he said Gandhi’s definition was empty verbiage. That’s when I lost all respect for theologians.
*
Cary Grant: “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.”
*
To my denialist Turkish friends I say: Never trust the word of a state that criminalizes free speech, because to do so amounts to saying yes to violations of a fundamental human right.
#
************************************************
READING
*******************************
While reading THE ROUGH GUIDE TO FILM NOIR by Alexander Ballinger and Danny Graydon (New York, 2007) I am surprised to note that two of my favorite noirs – THE ROARING TWENTIES and ANGELS WITH DIRTY FACES, both with Jimmy Cagney, are not even mentioned.
*
Sidney Sheldon’s THE OTHER SIDE OF ME: A MEMOIR (New York, 2005) reads more like fiction than autobiography. Orwell is right: “autobiography is the most outrageous form of fiction.”
*
Edmund Wilson’s review of Saroyan’s 1946 World War II novel, THE ADVENTURES OF WESLEY JACKSON, is included in his LITERARY ESSAYS AND REVIEWS OF THE 1930s &1940s (New York, 2007). Its final sentence reads: “This is surely some of the silliest nonsense ever published by a talented writer.” Elsewhere (page 498) Wilson described Saroyan as “an agreeable mixture of San Francisco bonhomie and Armenian Christianity”—whatever that may mean (one is tempted to ask what the hell does Wilson know about Armenian Christianity?) Wilson is far more to the point when speaking of THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE, he observes “…[Saroyan] achieves the feat of making and keeping us boozy without the use of alcohol and purely by the stimulus of art.”
*
In an illustrated article in LE POINT (Paris, April 10, 2008) Larry Gagosian, 62, is described as a “silver-haired playboy,” the offspring “of a modest family of Armenian origin in Los Angeles,” “a ‘killer’ in business deals,” and the multimillionaire owner of three art galleries in New York, two in London, one in Beverly Hills, and another in Rome.
#
Friday, May 02, 2008
************************************************
ON POLITICS & POLITICIANS
**************************************
There exists a wall between Turks and Armenians not because Turks and Armenians hate one another but because so far both sides have been at the mercy of politicians, that is to say, full-time professionals hate-promoters.
*
Politicians are megalomaniacs who are not masters of their own destiny but who think they can shape the fate of nations.
*
The Iron Curtain fell, the Berlin Wall was demolished, and if the Chinese Wall stands today it stands only as an expensive and useless relic.
*
The birth of imperialism: if this mountain is ours, so is the valley next to it. It follows, so is the river that irrigates the valley, and so is the source of the river.
*
If Martin Luther King had been an Armenian, he would have said, “I have a nightmare!”
*
Have I said this before? No matter. Everything that’s worth saying is worth repeating.
#
Saturday, May 03, 2008
**********************************************
ON THE HUMAN CONDITION
********************************************
Like an insect caught in a spider’s web, we live in an invisible network of human relationships and values, which existed long before we were born. The more freely we move in this environment, the more certain our fate of being captured and immobilized.
*
Desmond Tutu: “To forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest.” If this were true, all prisons would be abolished.
*
I once asked a theologian what he thought of Gandhi’s definition of God as Truth, and he said Gandhi’s definition was empty verbiage. That’s when I lost all respect for theologians.
*
Cary Grant: “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.”
*
To my denialist Turkish friends I say: Never trust the word of a state that criminalizes free speech, because to do so amounts to saying yes to violations of a fundamental human right.
#
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