confessions

May 2, 2010
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FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
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There are good Armenians and there are bad Armenians, or so I am told.
I am a bad Armenian because I hate myself and I hate Armenians, or so I am told.
Rouben Mamoulian was a bad Armenian because he never helped a single Armenian.
I once knew an Armenian conductor who, after inviting an Armenian pianist to play with his orchestra, said “Never again!”
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Never again!
Two words used by victims with the implication, “Unless we are the perps.”
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Once when asked why I don't encourage young Armenian writers, I said “We need readers not writers.” No one dared to object.
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One of the functions of lawyers is to defend the lawless.
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When asked if I believe in God, I say, “I don't believe in the God of imams, popes,
and televangelists.”
It seems to me, speaking about God or trying to understand the inconceivable and the incomprehensible, is like trying to drink the sea with a spoon.
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If you are an Armenian and have an opinion , you can always rely on a fellow Armenian to call you a fool and an ignoramus.
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A safe assumption: Anything that flatters the ego is false.
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When, at the turn of the last century, Turks heard Armenian Evangelicals singing "Onward Christian soldiers," they thought the giaours were planning another crusade.
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If I took my critics seriously, I would have two instead of only one ulcer.
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Good men don't judge bad men, because good men (if they exist) are too busy examining their own heart.
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If an Armenian tells you he doesn't hate Turks, it may be because he loves to lie even more.
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From a popular Armenian song:
"An Armenian loves to eat (oudel)
and he eats to hate (adel)."
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May 3, 2010
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CALL IT MEGALOMANIA
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My mission in life: to de-Ottomanize and to de-Stalinize my fellow Armenians; which amounts to saying: to humanize the dehumanized, to civilize barbarians, and to deprogram the brainwashed. Not an easy task. Which is why so far I have failed and the chances that I will ever succeed are so remote that they might as well be invisible to the most powerful telescope.
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A LOVE STORY
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In a review of an Iranian novel mention is made of a classical Sufi love poem titled "KHOSROW AND SHIRIN, written nine centuries ago by Nizami and telling of the romance between a great Persian king and an Armenian princess.”
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A SOLEMN PROMISE
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On the day I will stop infuriating fools, fanatics, and fascists (but I repeat myself) I will give up writing.
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PHYSICAL AND METAPHYSICAL REFLECTIONS
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What we don't know about the physical world or the visible universe far exceeds what we know. As for the metaphysical world – that which lies beyond the visible – we know nothing. Nothing! That doesn't stop us from blabbering endlessly about God, the Mother of God, the Son of God, the immortality of the soul, heaven and hell, and angels and devils.
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CHARLATANS: A DEFINITION
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Sermonizers and speechifiers who speak endlessly about things they know nothing about. Shaw is right: “All professions are conspiracies against the laity.”
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TODAY'S QUOTATION
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William McAdoo: “It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.”
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May 4, 2010
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THAT WHICH WE SHARE
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Our failings are universal, I am reminded once in a while by readers who are so afraid to confront their own failings that they adopt the school of thought that says “misery likes company.”
There are divisions everywhere, granted; also corruption and incompetence, not to speak of prejudice and ignorance. But is that the end of the story?
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In a book on the social behavior of animals, I read today: “The analysis of DNA demonstrates that only 2% of our genetic code differs from that of chimpanzees.”
In some respects, animals may be ahead of us:
“Female chimpanzees (unlike female humans) do not experience menopause, and thus can remain fertile into old age.”
Elsewhere: “It is not so much that elephants are like us. They are us, and we them.”
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We like to say that Naregatsi is our Shakespeare and Dante combined. But who reads Naregatsi? Not even Armenians. At least I have never heard an Armenian quote a single line by Naregatsi.
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Armenians are a fraction of mankind in the same way that a day is a fraction of eternity.
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“An Englishman cannot be a slave,” they sing in “Rule Britannia.”
And what do we sing? “Mer hairenik, tshvar ander.”
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About Armenians and slavery:
“Once upon a time we were slaves. We are now slaves of former slaves.”
We take to slavery like a duck takes to water, a baby to mother's milk, and newlyweds to their bed.
Instead of being subservient to the Sultan, we are now subservient to our bosses, bishops, and benefactors. Progress cannot be said to be our most important product.
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An autobiographical short story by an American writer begins with the words: “As one who works with words for a living...”
An Armenian writer could introduce himself with the same words except one: instead of “living” he would have to say “dying.”
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May 5, 2010
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CONFESSIONS
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In the Homeland, our elections are marred by irregularities, or so I am told by observers. In the diaspora, we have no elections. We must therefore conclude that our representatives represent no one but themselves and their respective mafias. As for our so called democracy, respect for human rights, and rule of law: they are nothing but fictions of our imagination.
We have been so thoroughly Ottomanized and Sovietized that we consider these aberrations business as usual.
When will we see the light?
It is said of blind men that when their sight is restored, they take refuge in dark rooms.
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To refuse to flatter fools is not the same as being negative.
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Heroes are like cops: they are never there when you need them.
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We flatter ourselves when we say the world, or a fraction of it, is against us. The truth is much worse, as always. The world is for itself and we may not even register on its consciousness. It would be even more accurate to say that the world cares about us as much as we care about ourselves.
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Unlike Turks we are good at picking fights we can't win. Several of our poets have even addressed some nasty words against the Good Lord Himself. At this point I don't mind admitting that, by picking a fight against our bosses, bishops, benefactors and their army of hirelings, flunkies, dupes and brown-nosers, I too have picked a fight I can't win, and I have thus joined the ranks of my ancestors as a perennial loser.
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