Those who do not know... a little information about author himself

Ara Baliozian is one of the greatest Armenian contemporary writers, but unfortunately most Armenians do not know about him or his works. He has published close to 20 books over the last 20 years and is acclaimed highly by the foreign media, like Gosdan Zarian and Shahan Shahnour before him, which goes to prove that our anti-establishment writers are not rejected because of the literary quality of their works, but only because of their ideas and their criticism of the Armenian establishment. Armenian papers used to publish his commentaries/book reviews, but lately he has been ignored by most of them (Armenian Life Weekly and New Life [Nor Gyank] which had been publishing his writings for years, among other papers, have been turning down his works lately). He is sixty years old, and lives in seclusion and poverty in Ontario, Canada.

"Armenian by ancestry, Canadian writer Ara Baliozian was born in Athens, Greece, and educated in Venice, Italy. Widely published in English and Armenian, he has been awarded many prizes and grants for his literary work. He is a regular to many publications in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East. His books include THE GREEK POETESS AND OTHER WRITINGS, ARMENIA OBSERVED: AN ANTHOLOGY, FRAGMENTED DREAMS: ARMENIANS IN DIASPORA, and the best-selling study THE ARMENIANS: THEIR HISTORY AND CULTURE. His translations of such Armenian classics as Krikor Zohrab, Zabel Yessayan, and Gosdan Zarian have been described as "valuable", "eloquent", "brilliant" contributions to world literature. He has himself been translated into French, German, Greek, Spanish, and Armenian."

Артур, а как ты относишся к пораженчеству? Не важно кто это, писатель или кто либо. Я имею ввиду - к пораженческим настроениям, к призывам забыть прошлое. Забыть резню к примеру.

Im tpavorutyunn el ayd mardu ayspes kochvats steghtsagortsutyunic bavakan bacasakan e. Erevum e, vor na bacardzak patkeracum chuni hayeric u nranc het kapvats iroghutyunneric. Hivandaginutyun u aghavaghvatsutyun hogebanakan u mardkayin - es tesak baner es zgum, erb kardum es ayd ... iski chgitem vonc kochem. Sa kliner handurzheli, ete aysqan molerandutyamb ayd mardn iren chgovazder amboghj internetov mek. Vnas e talis.

Satenik jan,
Liovin hamadzain em ko het. Khorurd kti kardaik sa:

http://armenianhouse.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=636

if i am wrong, correct me, but do not silence me.
if you expose my errors you attack my credibility -- which is a writer's most valuable possession. but if you silence me you violate my human rights and expose yourself as an intolerant, pro-fascist commissar./ ara

and stop waving the flag.
a flag-waver is a ridiculous creature in these parts..../ara baliozian

FREE SPEECH
*********************
He who violates my human right of free speech
is in no position to determine his degree of guilt or innocence.
If it were up to fascists to judge themselves,
they would be unanimous in pronouncing their victims guilty.
*
Has anyone ever bothered to see
how many times the expression "human rights"
or "free speech" occurs in the many speeches
delivered by the likes of Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin?
*
If you think today what you thought ten years ago,
or if you still believe everything
your schoolteacher or parish priest taught you,
you can be sure of one thing:
the last ten years of your life
have been a waste of time
because you have learned nothing.
*
The sons and daughters of well-known Armenian writers
that I have met or heard from
prefer solitude to the proximity of their fellow Armenians.
That may be because they know something
most Armenians don’t -- namely: to survive
in our environment one must either lie
or be penalized for his honesty.
*
Those who have violated my human right of free speech
are convinced they are better men than myself;
and they are better if only because
they are closer to God or the Truth.
Some of them have even delivered lectures to me
on good Armenianism.
They seem to be totally unaware of the fact that
only certified morons assume that
God, Truth, and good Armenianism have only one definition:
their own.
*
Those who conducted the purges in the USSR
during which our ablest writers were silenced
(some of them permanently)
were not bloodthirsty savages
or born killers or criminals.
They were law-abiding citizens.
The expression "banality of evil" fits them like a glove.
They did not see themselves as evil.
They were hard-working, dedicated, idealistic stiffs
acting in the name of duty, patriotism,
law and order and progress.
What happened to their offspring? I wonder….

Mr.,

If we’re talking ‘bout freedom of speech then guess I’m free to express my opinion don’t you think so? And would you please be that kind to not tell me should I wave Armenian Flag or not.
Meanwhile kindly note that there’s no pro-fascicm issue at all but simply Armenian. True Armenian if you want. Thank you for your kindest attention so far.

Wednesday, August 27, 2003
*******************************
A writer’s job consists in reducing
a complex, multidimensional reality
into a series of easily accessible one-liners – an operation
that can be as challenging as organizing an unruly mob
into a disciplined army willing to obey your commands.
Which may explain why most writers
suffer from a Napoleonic complex.
*
And speaking of complexes:
almost everyone I have been reading about recently
has been analyzed. I have never been near an analyst
and I doubt very much if I ever will find myself
in the same room with one.
What could he tell me that I don’t already know?
And what could I tell him?
Where would I begin?
I am misunderstood and spat upon by hoodlums?
Who isn’t?
Who hasn’t been?
Homer, it is said, was kicked out of seven villages,
all of which, after he died, claimed to be his birthplace.
To this day no one knows where he was born or,
for that matter, buried.
*
For a hundred years after his death,
J.S. Bach was neglected and almost forgotten.
Even his own sons, professional musicians all,
thought of him as a hopelessly old-fashioned composer
who deserved to be buried and ignored.
*
And if I were to say to my analyst:
"Most of my problems stem from the fact that
I was born an Armenian," he would reply:
"I was born a Jew. Only Turks are after your ass.
The whole world is after ours."
And I wouldn’t be surprised in the least
if his final line would be:
"When and where shall I see you next?
And how much do you charge an hour?"
*
Whenever I see an odar
joining one of our discussion forums on the internet
I would like to post the following message:
"Welcome to this forum, dear friend.
Please remember to ignore the hooligans among us.
They represent no one but themselves."
*
It must be obvious by now that
one doesn’t have to be a Turk in order to behave like one.
Nothing comes easier to an Ottomanized Armenian
than to behave like a Turk with the certainty that
he is discharging his duty as a patriotic Armenian.
The same applies to Sovietized Armenians.
*
An Armenian leader whose number one priority
is not uniting the nation should be declared a gravedigger.

don't use the flag to cover your nakedness.
there is a saying here: patriotism is the last refuge of rascals.
all fascists preach patriotism.
and i am old enough to recognize a fascist when i see one. / ara

I wrote "Armenian" if you noticed... Whatever, I'm not gonna continue this discussion any longer. Kindly be informed that I edit some of my previous messages for it's absolutely not my purpose to hurt you somehow. Meanwhile I keep my opinion the same.

Mr. Baliozian, it`s true, flag shouldn`t be used to cover one`s nackedness. But sometimes this flag is the last thing that one may have, because everything else was taken away from him. So sometimes there may be a need to look behind the flag. You, for example, are being far too socialst and also oikumenically humanistic in your speeches. We understand that this is the legacy of Canada adopted by you (or vice versa) - the fact is that your socialist liberal tolerant humanistic ignorant-approached state ideas are being expressed in what you say. Now it is quite possible to accuse you of being a nacked person hidden behind another flag (sort of), nowtimes Canadian. But your surname will still remain Baliozian. There is something I`d like to suggest to you - get to a good Christian church, read the Bible, repent. Ad God will teach you how to find your way to Him and through Him - to your homeland as well. Respect, G.A.[Reverend Justice]

sorry, my good reverend friend, but i happen to be allergic to sermonizers and speechifiers... / ara

Friday, August 29, 2003
*******************************
Everyone has his way of judging people and nations.
I judge them by the manner in which they treat writers.
History provides us with many precedents,
the most recent being Talaat’s Turkey and Stalin’s USSR.
And then there are the faceless flunkies
of our bosses, bishops and benefactors
who operate anonymously behind closed doors.
*
In the eyes of many Armenians,
especially those in authority,
the status of an Armenian writer is no better
than that of white trash.
To those who say what’s wrong with the way in which
writers like Oshagan, Shant and Garabents were treated?
I say, wrong question. None of these writers
qualifies as a dissident.
Whenever they discussed our problems
they tended to ascribe them to the people
rather than its leadership on whose goodwill
they were dependent.
Consider instead the treatment accorded
to Zarian, Shahnour and Massikian.
And consider the fate of many young writers
who gave up at an early stage of their career
because they saw the writing on the wall.
Result: Armenian literature has been reduced to a cemetery.
*
Why is it that dogs that kill
are invariably described by their owners as "friendly?"
and serial killers are described
as "nice" by their neighbors?
*
Being an Armenian writer
amounts to being a shoemaker in a country
where everyone prefers to go barefoot.
*
In a land of bloodsuckers,
gravediggers will prosper.
*
Armenian saying
(as quoted by Saroyan’s wife in her memoirs):
"If I tell you la, you should understand lalablue."
*
If you rely too much on your authority, money, or charm,
prepare yourself to confront someone
who will defy all three.
As the Greeks knew:
hubris is an open invitation to nemesis.
*
If you decide to adopt a fighting stance,
be prepared to lose some battles.
Which is better than the alternative:
defeat, degradation, despair and death.
*
Italian saying: "Fratelli, flagelli."
(Free translation: "The wrath of brothers,
the wrath of whips.")
*
Gerald Durrell’s memoir MY FAMILY
AND OTHER ANIMALS (1956) contains
an unforgettable and hilarious portrait of
Gostan Zarian.
Gerald Durrell: not to be confused
with his better-known brother Lawrence
(THE ALEXANDRIA QUARTET)
who also wrote extensively about Zarian.
*
Though she discusses many celebrities in her memoirs,
Saroyan’s wife (Carol Matthau) doesn’t even mention Marlon Brando
who knew both her and her daughter intimately.
Neither does she mention Saroyan’s autobiographical novels
in which she plays a prominent but not always a positive role.
*
On the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther’s King famous
"I have a dream" speech in Washington,
I imagine myself in Yerevan facing a large crowd of Armenians:
What would I say?
What else but "I have a nightmare!"
*
I don’t agree with a reality that makes crooks wealthy
and honest men poor, and because I speak
of this reality, some of my readers hate me
as if I were responsible for everything that has gone wrong
in their lives.
*
If some people have no interest in knowing themselves
it may be because they already know enough to know
that they are not worth knowing.
*
After reading the biographies and memoirs of celebrities
I have reached the conclusion that
some failures are happier than some successes.
Fame and fortune appear as necessary conditions of happiness
only in the eyes of those who have neither.
*
Among Armenians it is not always clear
who is trying to educate whom.
*
None of us can claim to know and understand everything.
But since we are all products of a unique set
of conditions and experiences,
we may know something the other doesn’t.
You may have noticed by now that
when Armenians get together
their number one priority is not to learn from one another
but to insult and, whenever they can, to silence anyone
who dares to disagree with them.
This is not conducive to solidarity and progress
but to disintegration and darkness.
Hence the old adage: "Mart bidi chellank!"
or: we shall never acquire the status of human beings.
And why?
Perhaps because we are more interest in politics and power
than in literature and truth.
And we are more interested in power
because we were deprived of it during most of our history.
The question is:
can we acquire power by violating
one another’s human right of free speech?
Can we acquire strength by dividing ourselves?
Can we improve our condition in any way
by hurling insults at one another?

Saturday, August 30, 2003
*****************************
No matter how rotten the status quo,
it will have its supporters and defenders.
From Nero and Caligula to Idid Amin Dada and Saddam:
they all had their supporters and beneficiaries.
*
A regime does not need majority support to survive.
All it needs is a ruthless elite,
a minority of supporters (or priviligentsia),
and an apathetic or intimidated majority.
*
Consider our present situation,
or the regime in Yerevan and
the garbage dump of the Diaspora.
Who profits?
The mafias in the Homeland
and the academics in the Diaspora.
The academics can always count
on the political and financial support of our elites
provided they concentrate on the Middles Ages
and the Massacres and ignore our present problems
by pretending we have none
or if we have any, time will solve them
if not in two than in three generations.
*
Why are you so tough on your fellow Armenians?
I am asked once in a while by concerned readers.
I am not tough on Armenians.
I am tough on deceivers, dividers, and bloodsuckers
regardless of nationality.
I am tough on all victimizers.
Now then, identify yourself please.
Are you a victimizer or a victim?
If you are a victim, why do you object
to my speaking up against your tormentors?
*
Why is it that some very smart and learned Armenians
confuse anti-charlatanism with anti-Armenianism?
Why is it that some very cunning Armenians
in their defense of their own selfish, narrow interest
will voice reasons worthy of an inbred moron?

Saturday, August 30, 2003
*****************************
No matter how rotten the status quo,
it will have its supporters and defenders.
From Nero and Caligula to Idid Amin Dada and Saddam:
they all had their supporters and beneficiaries.
*
A regime does not need majority support to survive.
All it needs is a ruthless elite,
a minority of supporters (or priviligentsia),
and an apathetic or intimidated majority.
*
Consider our present situation,
or the regime in Yerevan and
the garbage dump of the Diaspora.
Who profits?
The mafias in the Homeland
and the academics in the Diaspora.
The academics can always count
on the political and financial support of our elites
provided they concentrate on the Middles Ages
and the Massacres and ignore our present problems
by pretending we have none
or if we have any, time will solve them
if not in two than in three generations.
*
Why are you so tough on your fellow Armenians?
I am asked once in a while by concerned readers.
I am not tough on Armenians.
I am tough on deceivers, dividers, and bloodsuckers
regardless of nationality.
I am tough on all victimizers.
Now then, identify yourself please.
Are you a victimizer or a victim?
If you are a victim, why do you object
to my speaking up against your tormentors?
*
Why is it that some very smart and learned Armenians
confuse anti-charlatanism with anti-Armenianism?
Why is it that some very cunning Armenians
in their defense of their own selfish, narrow interest
will voice reasons worthy of an inbred moron?

Tuesday, September 02, 2003
***********************************
BODY LANGUAGE
Ideas too have a body language –
the vocabulary they employ,
the choice of clichés or their avoidance,
their tempo and tonality…
in short: to a skilled reader
an idea can be as transparent
as the confession of a guilty butler in an English mystery.
*
MEAN WOMEN
A mean woman can teach a man
more about his vulnerabilities and limitations
than a thousand yataghan-wielding Turks.
If you survive such a specimen
you can survive anything!
*
PROBLEMS
A problem is like an illness.
The first step is to diagnose it correctly.
But if you pretend it doesn’t exist,
you guarantee its deterioration from a minor nuisance
to a terminal disease.
*
FLAUBERT
An Arab blessing (as quoted by Flaubert in a letter from Cairo):
"I wish you all kinds of prosperity, especially a long prick!"
What’s next in line?
"May you deflower a hundred virgins"?
*
While in Cairo, Flaubert is said to have explored
the Armenian community.
I wonder if he discovered anything of interest.
*
Flaubert: "Stupidity is something immovable,
you can’t try to attack it without being broken by it."
*
SOCRATES
When asked where he came from,
Socrates is said to have replied:
"Not from Athens but from the world."
And yet, when he was condemned to death by the Athenians
and given an opportunity to escape,
he said he’d rather die in Athens than live anywhere else.
*
ON LIMITATIONS
We all go through a period in our lives
when the sky is the limit. But sooner or later
the painful realization sinks in:
we can’t even reach the ceiling of our solitary confinement.
*
CRITICS
It makes no difference whether you are a failure or a success,
the number of critics will remain constant.
What may change is their caliber.
As a failure you will be trashed by trash.
As a success you will be trashed by a better class of trash.
*
SAROYAN AND MAILER
In one of his books Saroyan mentions
Norman Mailer ("Norman who?")
only to dismiss him as an upstart.
In his latest book, THE SPOOKY ART:
SOME THOUGHTS ON WRITING (2003)
Mailer discusses many minor and major American writers
but doesn’t even mention Saroyan.
But in an isolated paragraph and
in reference to no one in particular, he writes:
"It’s the guys who pen wonderfully sweet books,
who are the real monsters.
You know – they kick the wife,
cuff the kids, and have the dog shrinking in horror.
Then their books come out:
‘X once again delights the reader with his sense of joy.’"

BEETHOVEN’S SHADOW
When Vahe Berberian once suggested that
Beethoven’s somewhat overblown shadow
unfairly eclipsed the reputation and worth
of many other equally great composers,
among them Boccherini,
Paul Jungmann, the quintessential German –
blond, blue-eyed, intense, unsmiling – said,
one should not speak such nonsense
in the presence of children.
Forever after music was never discussed in his presence.
*
A TOUMANIAN FABLE ABRIDGED
Early one morning when the fox hears a rooster crowing,
he thinks: "Breakfast!"
When he is told by the rooster in the tree
that he is not alone but with a friend,
he thinks: "Lunch too!"
But when he finds out the friend is not
another rooster but a dog,
the words breakfast and lunch are replaced with
"Feet, do your stuff!"
*
NOTES / COMMENTS
Wisdom and serenity are mutually exclusive.
You can’t be serene in a world of madmen
who think you are the mad one.
*
Subtract imagination from love
and the result will be closer to contempt than affection.
*
Our experiences have a meaning
that is beyond our understanding.
Or: our understanding is an extension of experiences
whose meaning has escaped us.
*
There is a type of minor celebrity
who behaves like a major celebrity
in the hope of being confused with one.
There is also a type of nonentity
who wants you to believe he is a future celebrity.
*
Whenever I reply to a critic, I make an enemy;
and whenever I am not diplomatic enough
in my replies – diplomacy not being my field –
I make a mortal enemy.
*
How many of us would be alive today
if we had Armenian ayatollahs authorized
to issue fatwas (contracts) on anyone
who disagreed with them or
their interpretation of the Scriptures?

AGAINST NATIONALISM
Once when I asked the nationality
of a dazzling beauty – a teenage waitress in the cafeteria
of a department store where I was employed as a stockboy –
she said: "Canadian."
When I asked for more details, she replied:
"Let’s see now, Irish, Polish, German, Cherokee,
French, Italian and Ukrainian."

FIRST COMMUNION
When asked what had been
the most important day in his life,
Napoleon is said to have replied:
"The day of my first communion."
My own first communion was such a forgettable event
that the only thing I remember about it
is the above quote (probably apocryphal) by Napoleon.
*
HUNGRY FOR NEWS?
A headline in one of our weeklies today reads:
"Famous in the Former Soviet Union
for the Power of His Jaws, Galstyan Tries New Career."
*
ON BIGOTS
Bigotry may also be defined as
allergy to common sense and reason.
In a state run by bigots all reasonable men
will be labeled as enemies of the people.
*
ROAD TO WISDOM
The shortest line between ignorance and wisdom
is a painful blunder.
*
Translations from
JULES RENARD’S JOURNALS: 1887-1910
(Paris: NRF, 1965, 1424 pages)
**********************************
Why should I give a damn about a thinker
who can’t explain the universe to me?
*
A talented honest man is as rare
as a man of genius.
*
What happens to all the tears that we don’t shed?
*
A fat man parading his belly
as if it were a wind instrument.
*
"This will be enough to pay for your cigarettes."
"Yes, but only because I don’t smoke."
*
I hesitate to walk behind a woman
afraid she may think I am following her.
*
In the garden I lower my eyes
not to scare the bird in the nest.
*
Migraine: this must be what Christ meant
when he spoke of his crown of thorns.
*
It’s so very easy for a woman
to make herself desirable.
No need to be attractive or very young.
All she has to do is extend her palm in a certain manner
and a man will be more than happy to place his heart there.
*
"How are you today?"
"Much better, thank you."
"You weren’t feeling well?"
There I was, pretending to be concerned
about the health of a fellow whose obituary
would have barely registered on my consciousness.
*
My sister is proud of the fact that
unlike her brother she is a believer.
*
He is for freedom but he happens to be such a nonentity
that I for one would prefer to share my life with slaves.
*
To write is almost always to lie.
*
I don’t disturb the cat sleeping on my desk.
Instead, I go out for a walk.
*
If I acquired everything I ever wanted,
immediately I would feel as though I had nothing.
*
Patriotism: The bull from one village
refuses to look in the direction of a petite cow
from another village.
*
"That fellow over there is sure tough."
"Oh! Why?"
"He never says a thing."
*
I can’t imagine living in a world in which
there are no mysteries and surprises.
If God exists, he must be very bored.
*

Wow! Да тут даже антиармянские стихи пишут!
У меня уже возникает вопрос - зачем азеры выбрали для своего сайта домен hayastan.com?

Сорри за оффтопик.

Арабалиоз(ян?).
Ваши стихи напоминают "творения" журналиста-неудачника.

Лично я уже высказывала свое мнение об этом человечке балиозяне, с какими-то только ему ведомыми армянскими корнями. Высказывала всюду - и открыто и в приватах. Его гадкое присутствие среди армян - лежит не на моей совести, будь моя воля, я бы ему запретила вход на любой армянский сайт. Со мной прошу не связывать его присутствие на форуме.

..vikinut otsjuda etogo bumagomaraku nado !

Saturday, September 06, 2003
*********************************
DENIALISTS
Notwithstanding the overabundance
of documentary evidence and eyewitness accounts,
there are people out there – not all of them skinheads
but academics, diplomats, and political leaders –
who are convinced the Armenian Genocide
and the Jewish Holocaust
are figments of someone’s imagination.
How does one explain this paradox?
To cover up a murder is not easy.
To cover up the murder of millions?…
One could say that we are all infected
with some degree of bias, prejudice and propaganda.
Also, that self-interest as opposed to objective judgment
dominates human relationships and political policies.
No doubt these factors are real and perhaps even inevitable.
But I suspect there is another factor that is often ignored.
*
THE GUILT OF VICTIMS
Simenon, the author of over 500 books
(memoirs, diaries, novels, mystery stories)
had a pet theory and a favorite theme: namely,
the guilt of the victim and the innocence of the killer.
He believed that man kills not because he is evil
but because he is provoked beyond endurance by his victim.
If it were up to Simenon,
all premeditated murders would be classified
as justifiable homicides. Now then,
if someone with Simenon’s mindset
were to write the history of our genocide,
he would emphasize the positive in Turks
and the negative in us to such a degree that
after reading it the average layman would think
Armenians themselves engineered their own destruction
and that what happened was not genocide
but collective suicide.
*
+/-
One could write an entire anti-Armenian book
by quoting only Armenian sources
and a pro-Turkish book by quoting non-Turkish sources.
*
JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDE
Whenever I read about a disgruntled employee
who goes on a killing rampage
I cannot help thinking that if his victims
were half as nasty as some of my bosses,
coworkers, and readers,
Simenon’s theory makes perfect sense.
I speak neither as a partisan nor a propagandist.
I consider parties and propaganda the source
of all confrontation and conflict.
If anything I am anti-partisan.
I believe in emphasizing the negative in us
and the positive in our adversaries.
If more people did that we would have fewer wars
and more peaceful coexistence – and ultimately
the brotherhood of all men,
which happens to be the professed aim
of all organized religions.
Where there is conflict,
the chances that both sides will emerge winners
are next to nil. This is not a theory but a fact
based on our own historic experience.
Deny that if you can!

*

Monday, September 08, 2003
**************************************
PROPAGANDA AND LITERATURE
All our problems must be ascribed to our enemies,
propaganda tells us.
The enemy is us, literature reminds us.
And propaganda is more popular than literature
because no one likes to be told
he is a fool or a pervert bent on self-destruction.
*
"We are a wounded nation,"
I am reminded once in a while by our propagandists,
"and you don’t kick someone who is down," – thus
equating truth with a kick in the groin.
But truth is a kick only to those
who prefer to live in a world of lies.
*
Life is complex and our understanding of it limited.
Just when we believe we have figured things out
something happens to remind us we haven’t yet begun.
Which is why we need to share our understanding.
By contrast, propaganda tell us
we know all we need to know
and we understand what needs to be understood --
thus obstructing our path
to self-realization, development and progress.
*
Propagandists operate on the assumption that
most Armenians are uninformed yokels;
and the dogmatic arrogance with which
they assert their lies is such that
to challenge them would mean going down
into the gutter where they live.
Hence the reluctance of most Armenians to speak up.
*
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
You may hide from the rest of the world,
but to your conscience you will always remain an open book.
Cain killed Abel long before Moses and his Ten Commandments.
Even so, he was tormented by his conscience
to such a degree that he said:
"My punishment is greater than I can bear" (GENESIS, 4-8).
It is true that the voice of conscience
is not the only voice within us.
Vanity, greed, pride, fear, bias, self-interest, among others,
speak to us too and very often
conscience is the last one in line;
but it is there and it cannot be silenced.
*
ON NEGATIVE COMMENTARIES
Whenever a negative commentary appears
in the American press, we are immediately urged
to write letters to the editor and accuse
the author of the commentary of racism.
No one ever says:
"Let us consider the seriousness of the charge
and see if it contains particles of truth."
*
LIES
The easiest lies to expose in others
are the ones we have ourselves professed in the past.
*
MACHO ETIQUETTE
Hemingway’s last wife writes in a letter that
whenever she wanted to talk to him about a problem,
he would say: "I haven’t got time.
I have to go shit now."

MEMOS TO A YOUNG WRITER
**********************************
Before you write a line ask yourself:
Why would anyone be interested in reading it?
What if I bore my reader?
*
Avoid repulsive details in the name of realism
because very often what remains in the reader’s mind
forever after is that detail and nothing else.
*
If you decide to be honest
be prepared to acquire mortal enemies.
*
Never underestimate your audience.
Always assume there are at least two readers
who know as much as you do
and at least one who knows more.
This rule, like all rules, has its exception of course.
If you write for an Armenian audience
it is always safer to assume that
every one of your readers knows better,
understands more, speaks more languages,
has seen many more places and
is acquainted with many more individuals,
societies and cultures.
*
Do not mention Khachaturian, Mikoyan and Saroyan
on the same page. I for one avoid reading all such articles
on the assumption that if you have read one of them,
you have read them all.
*
Never think of yourself as a dispenser of wisdom.
Compared to what we don’t know,
what we know is such a tiny fraction that
we might as well be blind, deaf and dumb.
When Socrates said "The only thing I know
is that I don’t know," he was not being ironic,
he was stating a fact.
*
Writing is difficult only when you have nothing to say
and writing is easy only if you repeat yourself.
Writing is like life.
If your life is easy,
do not waste your time writing.
You can write later….

///Never think of yourself as a dispenser of wisdom. ///

Mr.

So why you are trying to spread wisdom here ???

LoL. Begin from yourself and then try to advise something to others

i am not dispensing wisdom;
i am sharing my blunders;
i am being a witness;
the question is:
is my testimony honest or a perjury?
you decide...
you are a member of the jury!/ ara

Friday, September 12, 2003
********************************
ON BELIEF SYSTEMS
Armenia existed long before
any one of our present belief systems
and it will continue to exist long after they are forgotten.
But if Armenia dies
it will be a premature death brought on
by the divisive tactics of those
who uphold these belief systems.
*
Our belief systems (ideologies, religions,
or political parties and churches)
would have us believe that they hold the keys
to the next millennium. In reality, however,
their narrow-minded dogmatism and intolerance
lead not to salvation but to an early grave.
*
Speaking for myself,
after I become infatuated with a belief system
or worldview or idea, I want to know more
about its critics.
D.T. Suzuki’s INTRODUCTION TO ZEN BUDDHISM
was a turning point in my life,
but Koestler’s THE LOTUS AND THE ROBOT,
a merciless exposé of Eastern religions and mysticism,
including Zen Buddhism, made me realize that
this turning point led to a dead end.
The best book on Christianity that I have read is
Bertrand Russell’s WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN.
I love Toynbee but I also enjoy reading his critics,
except Trevor-Roper.
*
JOBS
As a wage earner, may I confess that
I have no pleasant memories perhaps because
I never had a job I didn’t hate – with the possible exception
of my first and last jobs.
Stoking the fire for a neighborhood blacksmith
at the age of nine was my first part-time summer job
and my last at the age of thirty:
organist in a Catholic church.
As an organist I preferred funerals to weddings
because at weddings I would be asked to play
the same old wedding marches (by Wagner and Mendelssohn),
Schubert’s or Bach-Gounod’s Ave Maria,
and Cesar Franck’s Panis Angelicus, and sometimes even
silly and sentimental tunes from the hit parade.
In compensation I would spend endless hours
with the complete works of Bach’s organ works
in an empty church with only the Good Lord as my audience.
*
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
After they surround themselves with yes-men,
they think they are right because everyone agrees with them.
*
The unbelievable ease with each he who hates his enemy
will also hate his friend and his brother.
*
If you challenge an adversary with the certainty
that you will win, you will lose.
*
To act in the name of God is bad enough;
but to think that our faith makes us invulnerable
is nothing short of suicidal arrogance.
*
A lie is like a deadly virus.
Left unattended it will poison and kill its promoter
as well as his dupes,
families as well as communities,
tribes as well as nations, empires and civilizations.
*
Perhaps I write because my life has been
a succession of blunders which I hope never to repeat
but which I keep repeating.
*
More Translations from
Jules Renard’s JOURNALS
******************************
Snow on water: silence over silence.
*
"What we need is a good tyrant!"
"For good slaves?"
*
Someone else’s success bothers me
but not as much as if he really deserved it.
*
If you are afraid of solitude, don’t try to be just.
*
Rivers will stop running if they knew
their tributaries are about to dry out;
but fat men will continue to gorge themselves
in the middle of a famine.
*
Dream: when reason takes a walk,
fools dance in the brain.
*
Pigs: all that filth on a pink background.
*
They ask me for my latest news
so that they can tell me all about their own problems.
*
The pathetic life of a tree
that no matter how much it agitates
it cannot take a single step.
*
A flock of sheep guarded by such a diminutive boy-shepherd
that if the sheep look the other way,
he may fall prey to a hungry wolf.
*
Posterity: why should the next generation
be better that this one?
*
He lost a leg in the last war;
he kept the other for the next one.
*
Peasants are probably the only species of humans
who don’t give a damn about landscapes.
*
My horror of lies has killed my imagination.
*
The sun rises before I do,
but to even things out between us,
I go to bed after it does.
*
Where there is a will there is a way;
but where is it exactly that the will resides?
*
Nietzsche: you want to know what I think of him?
I think there are some useless letters in his name.
*
My body is the guide dog of my blind soul.
*
Yes, I am bored but I don’t mind
because boredom does not hurt as much as
anger, pride, desire, etc.
*
Pig: a potato with ears.
*
"You are modest."
"Yes, but it hurts."
*
On waking up every morning, we should say:
"Great! I am not yet dead."
*
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if an honest lawyer
were to plead the jury to find his client guilty?

Saturday, September 13, 2003
**********************************
VANITY
Charlie Chaplin asked Truman Capote
to read the manuscript of his memoirs
with the eyes of a professional writer.
When Capote did and reported back with a list of suggestions,
Chaplin said: "Get the hell out of my sight!"
*
TERRITORIALITY
Animals defend their territory.
Men do too. But men also defend
their prestige, pride, vanity,
prejudices and ignorance.
*
MORE ON TERRITORIALITY
In the eyes of Muslims all Christians are infidels
and vice versa. Both Muslims and Christians may pray
to a merciful and compassionate God,
but in defense of their "territory"
they prefer to be merciless
in their dealings with their fellow men
who don’t share their prejudices and ignorance,
which they call faith.
Innocent until proven guilty may be a valid principle
in some justice systems but not in religion.
*
ON PLAGIARISM
When Garcia Marquez published
ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
he was accused of plagiarizing Faulkner and Balzac.
But he has himself admitted that
his main source of inspiration was
the first sentence of Kafka’s METAMORPHOSIS.
So what if he was also inspired or stimulated
by many other writers including THE ARABIAN NIGHTS?
There are two kinds of plagiarism:
the petty larceny variant practiced by mediocrities,
and the creative variant, the kind that all writers,
including Shakespeare, practice.
*
WHAT’S YOUR RACKET?
Even after 30 books and over a thousand articles,
stories, and essays in periodicals and newspapers
I hesitate to identify myself as a writer
because more often than not I am asked:
"How come I have never heard of you?"
to which I am tempted to reply:
"Next time you visit your public library
check and see how many names you recognize
besides Shakespeare’s and Hemingway’s?"
*
HIS RACKET
I can’t imagine Mozart at the age of thirty saying:
"I have composed enough. I am quitting."
I have no doubt whatever in my mind that
Mozart would have gone on composing
even at the age of 80, very much like Verdi.
Likewise, I can’t imagine God saying,
"I have created the universe and enough is enough!"
What if, even as I write these lines,
God is busy creating other universes?
*
MORE OR RACKETS
Speaking with a forked tongue
comes naturally to most lawyers, politicians,
statesmen, religious leaders, businessmen, and so on.
And the higher their position in the hierarchy
the more transparent their double-talk.
*
ORIENTAL WISDOM
To avoid grief, conflict, misery and suffering,
do nothing and be nobody. Or simply, imitate the dead.
That’s what most Oriental wisdom boils down to.
But since life is only an extremely tiny interval of light
in the darkness of non-being,
it should be as different from death as we can make it
even if in the process we experience confusion and misery.
*
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
Imagined places are not subject to weather conditions.
*
We all need critics.
I have mine and you have yours;
and if you say you have none, I say
you have been very lucky so far
but don’t expect your luck to hold forever,
especially if you move within an Armenian environment.
*
A self-appointed commissar of culture
may qualify as a potential murderer
but not as a critic.
*
Why fight an enemy who is his own worst enemy?

Monday, September 15, 2003
*******************************
INSPIRATION VERSUS STIMULATION
Inspiration is more like a chance visit
from up above somewhere. By contrast,
one can be stimulated by a line or a memory
as surely as an encounter or an overheard remark.
*
THE MIND OF MAN
Gather together ten or twenty of the greatest minds
in the world today --scientists, artists, composers –
and place among them a totally unknown young thing
with a pair of fabulous legs in nylons and ask yourself:
"Who or what would be the main focus
in this group portrait?"
Whoever said "The mind of man is the naked body of a woman,"
sure knew what he was saying.
*
GRUB FIRST
Since I speak in terms of common sense of decency
as opposed to complex Hegelian or mystical principles
I am astonished when sophisticated readers,
among them academics, contradict me
and they contradict me not because they disagree with me
but because they are not dependent on my goodwill
but on the goodwill of those I criticize.
Brecht is right: "Grub first then ethics."
*
HEMINGWAY AND SAROYAN
Rereading Hemingway’s Paris memoir, A MOVEABLE FEAST,
which I first read forty years ago.
Saroyan and Hemingway were rivals rather than friends
but in their dysfunctional private life, friendships,
and writing style (or search for simplicity),
they might as well be twins.
*
HEMINGWAY AND SIMENON
I note with pleasure that Hemingway was fond of Simenon too
though he doesn’t say why.
It is not easy to explain why Simenon
has fascinated so many readers.
The most revealing explanation that I have read
is that he is "Chekhovian." And to think that Chekhov
could never write a novel and Simenon
produced several hundred of them.
*
More translations from
Jules Renard’s JOURNALS
*******************************
I continue to live with the foolish hope that some day
I will receive a letter that will make me happy
for the rest of my life.
*
"When I started being unfaithful to my wife
I felt so guilty that I wanted to confess to her…
and I did by making a joke of it.
She didn’t believe me.
Now I cheat with a clear conscience."
*
A horse bursts out laughing in the night.
*
There can be nothing like a dictionary of medicine
to make you disgusted with life.
*
I have a horror of rhyme, especially in prose.
*
I am not one of those who think
there is nothing more mysterious than the soul of a young lady.
*
How can you expect a man who doesn’t raise his voice
to pass for a genius?
*
I am one of those free thinkers who wouldn’t mind
having a good parish priest as a friend.
*
Being deaf he makes nasty remarks
probably assuming no one can hear him.
*
The key in the keyhole on the outside door
does not mean you may enter
but don’t bother entering because there is nothing to take.
*
Happiness may be expressed with the first words
that come to mind. Tenderness requires
a more careful choice of vocabulary.
Serious words run the risk of sounding false.
Happy words do too but they don’t attract as much attention

September 16, 2003
***********************************
HEMINGWAY AND CRITICISM
With the possible exception of Isak Dinesen and Simenon,
Hemingway was very critical of his contemporaries.
At one time or another he has denigrated
and even insulted Sinclair Lewis, William Saroyan,
William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Gertrude Stein,
Michael Arlen, Norman Mailer, and
James Jones, among many others.
He has also said: "Criticism is s**t."
One could collect all his critical remarks
and publish them under the title HEMINGWAY'S S**T.
*
QUOTATIONS
In Pietro Kuciukian's travel impressions of the Middle East
I come across the following quotations:

According to Lord Byron: "Swear in Turkish,
negotiate in English, make love in French,
issue orders in German, sing in Italian,
pray in Armenian."
*
"Armenians are so nationalistic that
they are even willing to sacrifice Armenia
in the name of patriotism."
*
"An Armenian will hoodwink ten Jews
but two Armenians will be taken in by a single Jew."
*
"If an Armenian cannot write poetry
he will organize a new political party."
*
"Before you speak the truth
mount your horse."
*
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
You start winning when you no longer care
whether you win or lose.

Monday, September 22, 2003
*********************************
BEFORE AND AFTER
In a single day last week I aged twenty years.
Before my eye surgery,
when I was classified as "beyond legally blind,"
I saw the world through the eyes
of an impressionist painter (more Monet than Renoir).
I now see it through the eyes
of a Depression era photojournalist.
*
OVERHEARD
"A single wolf is a dog, a pack of wolves is a mafia."
*
"Suffering is a bad companion but an excellent teacher."
*
LITMUS TEST
How to recognize a Bolshevik?
If you say Stalinism and he says McCarthyism,
in the sense of six of one, half a dozen of the other,
even steven, tit for tat,
he is a Bolshevik and a good candidate
for a killer commissar who will gladly purge
not only his enemies but also friends.
To such a one the words dissent and death
might as well be synonymous.
*
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
A Muslim scholar in Canada
has written a book critical of Islam
and now lives in fear of assassination.
*
Fanatics think with their intestines.
Their role models are people like Stalin and Saddam.
They are conditioned to be critical of others (which is easy),
never of themselves (which is harder).
*
You cannot engage in dialogue with cancer.
Cancer should be analyzed, understood, and if necessary,
surgically removed, because that is the only way
to obstruct its path of destruction.
*
Never complain to someone
who may have more problems than you.
Instead of sympathy you may get contempt and ridicule.

Wednesday, September 24, 2003
************************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*******************************
"We prefer to promote our own,"
one of our partisan leaders is quoted as having said.
And what happens on the day
they run out of them – as they appear to be today?
Do they lament or do they congratulate themselves
for successfully eliminating the intellectual class?
*
Once, recently, when I said something to the effect
that our treatment of writers
has been worthy of barbarians,
it was the barbarians who were eager to prove me right
by hurling insults at me and in general
behaving like hoodlums on the warpath – as if
that was the only way they knew
how to prove me wrong.
*
"For a smart man you can be very naïve!"
a trial lawyer, who is also a good friend, tells me.
I don’t know about smart
but I am worse than naïve
when I get emotionally involved.
Emotion reduces a complex reality
into a one-dimensional extension of ourselves.
Emotion, writes Sartre somewhere,
attempts to change the world by means of magic.
What could be more primitive?
*
The most beautiful spectacle I have ever beheld
was a sunrise from a seventh story hospital window;
and to think that the purpose of a sunrise
is not to provide man with beauty.
*
To any objective observer
our underdog status is a direct result
of "a house divided against itself."
And yet, our dividers continue to enjoy community support
and those who call them gravediggers
are ignored, vilified, silenced, and starved.
*
Men feel about women
the way prisoners feel about freedom.
But as every free man knows,
freedom has walls of its own
and sometimes many more than a prison.
*
Overheard: "Too good is no good."

Mr. Baliozian

Did you ever think about relocation to Armenia about which you write so much? Would you every love to move to your mother country?

Friday, September 26, 2003
**********************************
FROM MY NOTEBOOKS
*****************************
No one can be as catastrophically wrong
as one who thinks the truth is one
and he is its voice.
*
You may have noticed that
enemies of the U.S. appear to know more about the U.S.
than the average American.
Something similar could be said
of anti-Semites and racists in general.
If only these gentlemen knew as much
about the evils of totalitarianism, anti-Semitism and racism.
*
And isn’t it strange that
the very same people who criticize the U.S.
for its support of corrupt dictators
in Latin America and elsewhere,
are also ardent supporters of murderous thugs like Saddam?
*
We have this in common with the Arabs:
we are conditioned to ascribe most of our own failings
on the West, with one difference:
their enemy number one is Israel, ours is Turkey.
*
The Middle East has produced many more neurotics
than the Oedipus complex. On the day this becomes evident,
psychiatrists will have a new market.
*
Mullahs promise 73 virgins to horny teenagers on the warpath.
What do they promise to virgins?
A hundred gigolos?
*
Hatred of injustice should not be confused
with love of justice, especially in an environment
where there is more hatred than love.
*
One cannot speak of vision
where "the blind leads the blind."
*
I am attacked by our hooligans
and ignored by our academics because
I recycle the central message of Khorenatsi,
Yeghishe, Raffi, Baronian, Odian, Zarian,
Shahnour, and Massikian among others,
as opposed to promoting hooliganism,
pseudo-medievalism and dead-end massacrism.
*
Intolerance is born of insecurity.
Intolerance means fear of doubt and dread of exposure.
It might as well be synonymous with cowardice.
*
From the atomic structure of things to distant galaxies:
we all agree that there is an organizing principle
at work in the universe.
What we don’t agree on is
the goal of this organizing principle.
We cannot even explain why things exist.
As for the existentialist credo that life is absurd:
Is it conceivable for an organizing principle
to be subservient to its own contradiction?
*
The most interesting man in the world
is a bore to himself. Hence the old Armenian saying:
"Marte martov g’ella."
A man is made [whole] by another.
*
Criticism and death wish are mutually exclusive.
A critic who is driven by hatred
undermines the validity of his criticism.

i know enough about my beloved homeland
and the manner in which it has treated its writers
to want to set foot there. / ara baliozian

Saturday, September 27, 2003
********************************
ON JUSTICE
The very same people who accuse me
of exposing our dirty linen in public
run to an odar lawyer
whenever they have a grievance
against a fellow Armenian;
and once, when I proposed an internal justice system
to deal with such grievances
I was met with apathy, silence and even ridicule.
Why is it that those who demand our trust
do not trust one another’s sense
of fair play, judgment and justice,?
*
ON SHAMANISM
We were raised without the benefit
of Freud and Spock, granted;
and I am even willing to concede that
our ignorant, hidebound and disoriented parents
(disoriented by war, massacre, deportation,
exile and destitution) could have done a better job.
And yet, I shall always be grateful to them
for not conspiring with some hack or shaman
to make of us charlatans and frauds.
*
TWO SHAMANS
I respect both Marx and Freud
as pioneers in their respective field of inquiry,
but consider their differences:
Marx would have accused Freud
of using a pseudo-science of his own fabrication
to adjust the individual to an unjust,
dehumanized and essentially evil social order.
In his turn, Freud would have accused Marx
of Jewish messianism and a total inability to predict
the consequences of his own theories
which were fated to be far more dangerous,
lethal, and evil than those of capitalism.
And the irony is that both would be right.

Monday, September 29, 2003
********************************
There are advantages in living
in a boring little town in the middle of nowhere –
no distractions and only two or three distant friends
who keep their distance and who
after a while may even forget
to check if you are dead or alive.
*
To those of my gentle readers
who are eager to inform me
that I am a failure as a writer, I say:
I prefer to think of myself
as one who has had three bad decades –
which is something that can happen
to the best of us.
We as a nation have suffered six bad centuries
(or sixty decades) under the Turks
and seven worse decades and under the Bolsheviks:
Who among us will dare to suggest
that we are confirmed failures
and no effort on our part will have any effect
on our jagadakir (that which is written on our forehead)?
*
If blunders don’t lead to wisdom
they will be repeated until the final catastrophe.
There you have it: our history in a nutshell.
*
The impressions of Armenian tourists in Armenia
remind me of the old Indian fable
of the three blind men trying to describe an elephant.
"An elephant looks like a rope,"
says the first after touching its tail.
"Like a tree," says the second
after touching one of its feet.
"Like a snake," says the third
after touching its trunk.
Speaking for myself:
I have heard and read enough to keep my distance
and I can only repeat what an Irish writer said of Ireland:
"It’s a good place to die";
and to paraphrase the famous last words
of a 17th-century French philosopher:
"I should like to see the last corrupt politician
strangled with the guts of the last corrupt policeman."

Wednesday, October 01, 2003
********************************
Writes Hazlitt in one of his essays:
"The least pain in our little finger
gives more concern and uneasiness
than the destruction of millions of our fellow beings."
There you have it: human nature in all its glory.
Swine are better than us
if only because they don’t brag
about their non-existent moral superiority.
If only our revolutionaries at the turn of the century
had read Hazlitt!
*
Pity the nation whose leaders and educators
would be exposed as frauds and dupes
in an enlightened democracy.
*
Increasingly now I cannot help noticing that
our pundits and commentators write more
about Turks than Armenians
and when they write about Armenians
it is more often than not
about Saroyan, Khachaturian,
or some other contemporary semi-celebrity
who is making a name for himself in odar circles.
*
All arguments boil down to the assertion:
I am better or wiser or more patriotic.
Question: Who feels the need to make such assertions?
My guess is: Fools and dupes who cannot tell the difference
between patriotism and treason.
*
Growing up means acquiring an enhanced awareness
of the reality of others.
But no matter how intensely aware we become of them,
they are destined to remain second-class citizens
in our consciousness unless we artificially exaggerate
their importance to the same degree
that we diminish our own.
*
I have been exposed to too much Armenian crap
to be tolerant of Armenian nonsense.
*
Making yourself inaccessible to the enemy
is also a victory.

Friday, October 03, 2003
*****************************
If some day we produce an objective historian
he will have to conclude that
alienated and assimilated Armenians
(beginning with the imperial dynasties of Byzantium)
made more contributions to mankind
than so-called authentic Armenians.
The question we should ask at this point is:
What is it about our environment
that infects us with mediocrity?
*
An Armenian tends to think that
just because he is an Armenian
he is also an expert on Armenian affairs
beginning with the Genocide.
But I suggest anyone who knows only
one side of a story, any story,
cannot qualify as an expert.
And to be the dupe of propaganda
is worst than a little knowledge,
which we are told is a dangerous thing.
*
Some of the most inane assertions I have heard
were made by Armenians about Armenians.
Which may suggest that if we are smart,
it is only in the market place.
Anywhere else we might as well be babes in the woods.
*
If you believe in an ideology, religion
or any closed system of thought,
read its critics and dissidents, not its propagandists,
because propaganda has this in common with serial killers:
it will invariably plead not guilty.
*
A headline in our local paper today:
AFTER ADMITTING TO KILLING HIS SIX CHILDREN
HANDEL PLEADS NOT GUILTY.
*
The approval and support of a writer
by a political party is as good as a kiss of death.
*
What legitimizes and perpetuates divisions
in a nation or community is not
enlightened self-interest or common sense
but tribal instinct for feud and vendetta
that every generation passes on to the next.
*
Blood may well be thicker than water
but common sense goes farther than chauvinist crapola
and common decency is superior to mumbo jumbo.
*
Here are some aphorisms by Antonio Porchia (1886-1968),
an Argentine writer of Italian descent
who appears to know all about us:
*
"Truth has very few friends and those few
are suicides."
*
"A door opens to me. I go in and am faced
with a hundred closed doors."
*
"You think you are killing me.
I think you are committing suicide."
*
"Some things become so completely our own
that we forget them."
*
"They will say that you are on the wrong road,
if it is your own."

Saturday, October 04, 2003
******************************
In Turkey we were classified us "Christian Turks"
in the hope that if they stopped calling us Armenian
we may forget our identity.
In Russia we were ridiculed as "cowardly"
probably because we refused to die in someone else’s war.
In Italy we acquired the reputation of cunning merchants
because Italians dealt only with Levantine merchants
and not with hard-working farmers and craftsmen
of the mainland.
In France we were described as "filthy"
because in Shahnour’s words "destitution stinks."
In Greece we were dismissed as "Turkish gypsies"
because as refugees from Ottoman atrocities
we lived in a ghetto that looked like a gypsy encampment.
And if you think the odar world has been rough on us,
consider what repatriated Armenians were called
by the natives: "akhber" – an obvious pun
on the word garbage.
As Americans are fond of saying:
"Everyone has an angle."
And we ain’t no exception.
*
Almost every other Armenian I meet
has no intention of dedicating his life
to literature but would like to acquire the reputation
of one who could have been a great poet,
author or even intellectual-statesman
but preferred to sacrifice his genius
by serving the people in more tangible ways,
such as selling Oriental rugs,
making a pile, and sharing a few crumbs
with the needy – provided this fact is broadcast
to the whole wide world.
*
There will always be questions we cannot answer
and corners in our psyche that will remain inaccessible.
It is the darkness in these inaccessible places within us
that religions and ideologies exploit.
*
TV violence is bad, yes;
but far more dangerous is a belief system
that promotes prejudice.
There was no TV violence in the Ottoman Empire
and Nazi Germany, and yet, millions of innocent human beings
were slaughtered in cold blood.
*
When I was my own worst enemy,
I didn’t know it.
*
I like this expression by Beckett:
"like a caged beast born of caged beasts."
*
Reconciling self-interest with noble altruistic principles
is not easy but that doesn’t stop anyone from practicing it.
*
Whenever I dismiss one of our notorious Soviet-era brown-nosers,
I am asked: "What would you have done in his [or her] place?"
Here is a good answer by the 18th-century French philosopher
Joseph de Maistre: "I don’t know
what the life of a rogue can be like,
since I have never been one,
but the life of an honest man is abominable."
*
You cannot reason with insanity,
you cannot compromise with charlatans,
you cannot communicate with trash,
and you cannot love those who promote
prejudice, hate, war and massacre.

Monday, October 06, 2003
********************************
Going places and meeting people
I consider activities that belong to
the showbiz department of life.
I prefer my solitude and the company of trees.
*
A charming man does not waste his charm
on someone he considers useless to him.
*
Speaking of a writer we were about to meet,
a friend of mine once warned me:
"Be careful of what you say in his presence:
he may write about it."
That friend as well as his friends
are no longer friends of mine.
*
I am clumsy with tools.
Whenever I try to fix something around the house
I end up doing more damage.
Once when I tried to nail a framed picture on the wall,
I damaged the wall,
shattered the glass in the frame,
hurt my thumb,
separated the hammerhead from its shaft,
and bent the nail.
Now, whenever they see me with a hammer in my hand,
members of my family scatter in panic.
Which is exactly how I feel too
whenever one of our leaders pretends to have found
the solution to all our problems.
*
I question the validity of using our victims
as proof of moral superiority.
If anything, they are proof of our incompetence
and ignorance of history.
What could be more morally reprehensible
than using someone else’s heroism
to cover up our cowardice or
someone else’s generosity of spirit
to justify our pusillanimity?
*
When you visit a doctor
and he finds something wrong with you,
you don’t say: There is nothing wrong with me
and he doesn’t know what he is talking about.
And yet, this is what I am told
whenever I point out a contradiction in our thinking.
All nations are torn by internal conflicts, I am told.
All political leaders are clowns.
All religious leaders engage in double-talk
and promote intolerance against anyone
who refuses to accept their authority.
In short: there is absolutely nothing wrong with us,
we are God’s chosen people and
we sit at the His right hand.
But if there is a message in our history
of defeats, catastrophes, and tragedies, it is this:
We are at the mercy of arrogant and corrupt nonentities,
we are not God’s chosen people,
and if we sit anywhere it is at the edge of the abyss.
*
I feel guilty even when innocent.
All it takes is an accusation.
I feel guilty if only for appearing guilty
in the eyes of another; and
I feel guilty because I have experienced
the kind of white-heat rage during which
I could have committed the most unspeakable crimes.
In a way I understand the Turks.
What I refuse to understand is
the shameless impudence of our leaders
who plead not guilty on the grounds that
they believed the West would never allow the Turks
to massacre Armenians.
*
Does religion civilize?
Before you answer that question,
consider the history of organized religions
and the barbarism of religious fanatics.
*
Following the example of Socrates,
Chekhov compared his role as critic to that of a horsefly.
To be a horsefly, you need a horse’s ass.
All I have at my disposal is horse manure.

Wednesday, October 08, 2003
*********************************
My mother likes talking to her flowers
and I don’t mean small talk
but such things as recent developments in the Middle East;
and judging by the way they thrive,
I am now convinced they are very much interested
in everything she says.
My mother has better luck with her plants
than I have with my readers.
*
How many Armenian dissidents
did the Armenian diaspora support during the Soviet era?
Case in point: a high-ranking member of the AGBU
(also known as KGBU at the time) once told me:
"Paradjanov is a syphilitic homosexual and black marketeer.
They should have locked him up
and thrown away the key a long time ago."
With such friends, who needs Talaat and Stalin?
*
All I ask from writers, even the very best among them,
is the occasional good book
and if that’s asking too much,
the occasional good line that may illuminate
a dark corner of the human psyche.
I find it incomprehensible therefore whenever
one of my readers asks more than that from me,
and I can’t help speculating that
if I were to deliver more,
his opinion of me would sink even lower.
*
Human rights has never been
a central issue in our media.
The only time I remember to have read
an editorial on freedom of speech was when
President Levon Der Bedrossian
banned an ARF newspaper in Yerevan.
*
To say it will take one or more generations
for things to change is to abdicate our responsibility
to do what must be done today.
Because if anything changes
it will have to begin here and now.
Which is why I assert, nothing will change
until the day one of our bosses or bishops states:
"I shall resign for the sake of solidarity."
These gentlemen (if you will forgive the overstatement)
cling to power for as long as they can
by demonizing the opposition
and they compound the felony
by trying to project the image of
selfless and patriotic servants of the nation.
*
When two Canadians soldiers died in Afghanistan last week,
there was a veritable avalanche of commentaries,
editorials and letters to the editor
blaming the Canadian government for
(a) getting involved in foreign wars,
and (b) for not equipping the Canadian army adequately enough.
And for everyone who adopted a critical stance
towards Bush and the Taliban,
there were those who defended them.
And now, compare our attitude
towards our million and a half.
How many of our so-called pundits
who fuel our Genocide industry
would dare to say anything remotely critical
of our political leadership?
On the contrary, they are unanimous in placing the blame
squarely on the Turks and the West thus implying
the conduct of our own leaders
was beyond reproach and criticism.
*
If every writer took an oath
not to be subservient to any political party
or power structure,
I suspect the number of our writers and scholars
would dwindle to almost zero.
*
There is nothing wrong in hating your enemy
so long as you also learn from him.
*
The smaller the country
the bigger the spiel.

Thursday, October 09, 2003
*******************************
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unspeakable crimes
against humanity, yes, certainly.
But let us consider the context:
Japanese militarism, fascism, fanaticism,
imperial ambitions and atrocities in Asia during World War II:
in what way were they manifestations of moral superiority?
The same applies to Muslim fanatics.
The only reason so far they have not incinerated
New York City and Washington and every civilian in it
is that they lack the means and not the ruthless disposition.
To be politically correct, they are technologically challenged.
And as far as I know, no one, not even a certified moron,
would dare to suggest that being backward
is an unmistakable symptom of moral superiority.
*
Dupes proceed on the assumption that
they are as smart as they come,
and based on that illusion
they resent anyone who exposes them as suckers.
"How dare you suggest you are smarter than I am?"
they seem to be saying.
*
Armenian saying: "With the hands of odars
you can harvest only thorns."

Saturday
*****************
The problem with ascribing all our
problems, defeats, tragedies and
catastrophes on outside agencies is that
this allows us to adopt a passive stance,
to do nothing,
to be dependent on the goodwill of others --
including those who may or may not be
favorably disposed towards us -- in short:
to surrender our destiny as a nation into
foreign hands, which, according to an old Armenian saying,
"will harvest nothing but thorns."
The common sense of our peasants
contains more wisdom than the calculations
of our self-assessed cunning political leaders.
*
As i write i also read what i write
through the eyes of an unfriendly critic
who understands everything i say
but does not always agree
with the manner in which i say it.
*
If you want to appear intelligent,
do not utter inanities.
If you want to appear civilized,
do not engage in hooliganism.
If you want to pontificate in the name
of Armenia or Armenianism,
refrain from sounding like a bloodthirsty Turk
on the warpath.
*
Only single-digit morons
brag about their IQs.
As a rule, we brag about things we lack,
so that you can tell a man's deficiencies and needs
by what he brags about.
My ancestors were heroes!
They were nothing of the kind
and if they were were,
they couldn't have been his ancestors.
If present-day Greeks share anything in common
with their illustrious ancestors of ancient Greece,
it is not with the likes of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
but with those who persecuted them.
What about us?
What do we share with the likes of
Abovian, Baronian and Zarian?
Nothing!
With those who persecuted, betrayed and silenced them?
Everything!
*

Monday
*****************
Our reality is so complex
and the result of so many blunders,
miscalculations and contradictions that
it is impossible to make a general statement
without sounding like a simpleton.
To an Armenian who says:
"Armenians are tolerant," I ask:
"How tolerant are you towards anyone
who says Armenians are intolerant?"
To an Armenian who says
"Armenians are smart," I ask:
"How smart can an Armenian be who says he is
tolerant only of those who are
in complete agreement with him?"
*
Criticize the U.S. and Israel all you want --
nothing wrong in that.
Everyone does it, including Americans and Jews.
But there is everything wrong in recycling
Soviet-style anti-Americanism
and Nazi-style anti-Semitism.
This type of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism,
in addition to being anachronistic,
it is politically bankrupt, morally reprehensible,
and ultimately self-defeating.
*
"You are telling us the emperor has not clothes!"
No, i am also saying, the emperor is not an emperor
but an impostor who has been unmasked again and again
but for reasons beyond human comprehension
continues to enjoy the loyalty of a small
and non-representative fraction of the people.
*
Nothing can be more optimistic and naive
than to rely on the common sense and enlightened self-interest
of your fellow men.
*
To go down into the gutter with your adversary
is almost to agree with him -- if not with his words
than with his way of life.

October 15, 2003
*******************************
We have had so much history rammed down our throats
that we haven't yet had a chance to digest it.
We are a nation suffering from chronic constipation.
*
A civilization in the making
is also a rejection of all previous civilizations.
The Greeks rejected the personality cult
and the apotheosis of death
on which the civilization of Egypt was based.
But the Greeks also rejected some of their ablest men
without whom Greek civilization would be an oxymoron.
Which amounts to saying:
there is an element of barbarism in all civilizations.
*
Perhaps the Good Lord in His infinite wisdom
gave us old age to remind us that
being physically desirable is not the sole aim in life.
*
In their infinite cunning and our unlimited gullibility,
our leaders call us smart before they exploit our credulity.
*
The unspoken platform of our leadership:
To do that which should be left undone
(to claim historic Armenia -- remember:
Columbus discovered America 500 years ago,
and the Turks conquered Armenia 600 years ago),
and to undo that which was done
(to unite the nation after the divide-and-rule tactics
of our former rulers and masters).
*
My country right or wrong and
myself right or wrong might as well be synonymous.
*
How to win an Armenian argument?
If you cannot dismiss your opponent's words as irrelevant,
question his integrity.
*
More often than not "I am right, you are wrong," means:
My self-interest or ego is more important than yours.
*
Until very recently, we, Armenians of the diaspora,
were not allowed to know the identity of our political leaders;
and now that they know them,
we understand why they prefer to remain anonymous.
*
An Armenian writer on his 50th birthday once told me:
"If i am ever asked what has been
my most important contribution to Armenian literature,
i will say, I have survived.
There are not too many Armenians writers
who could have made that boast."
*
Political platforms, advertisements, public relations:
they are all designed to promise more than they can deliver;
and whenever they can get away with it,
to promise everything and delivering nothing,
and sometimes even less than nothing:
like cigarette commercials that promise sex appeal
and deliver cancer; and closer to home:
our own revolutionaries at the turn of the cenbtury ]
who promised a free and independent homeland
and delivered massacre; or as the old proverb has it
"They went out for wool and came home shorn."
*
Our situation is unique?
Our problems are complex?
No, they are nothing of the kind
if they can be condensed in slogans,
expressed in cliches,
and analyzed by anonymous proverbs.

Oct. 17, 2003
******************************
MEMO TO OUR EDITORS
Burning books,
burning men,
Nazi concentration camps,
Soviet Gulags:
they all begin with censorship.
*
It is impossible to struggle against the certainty of ignorance
with the doubts of knowledge.
*
On the origin of the universe:
was it an accident?
was it by design?
was it designed to look like an accident?
*
What is the use of rising from the ashes
only to sink in the mire?
*
Since everyone wants wealth and power,
those who have both will support a religion
that says poverty and subversience are virtues
that will be rewarded in an afterlife.
Likewise, what our revolutionaries support today
is quintessentially unrevolutionary
(namely, obedience to authority):
that's because regardless of what they preach and promote,
all power structures share
the same unspoken values and principles.
*
Armenians and their perennial demands
of Genocide recognition and territorial claims
are like sheep preaching vegetarianism
in a world run by wolves.
*
"The problem with us is that we have no role models,"
one of our pundits once informed me.
I would amend that statement to:
"Having rejected all role models,
we are left with none."
*
If they have donkeys as leaders,
the smartest people on earth
will be defeated by the dumbest.
*
The greatest obstacle to progress
is the sensible man who says:
"You cannot change human nature.
Nobody listens. Nobody gives a damn.
You are wasting your time."
*
So what if i am not a popular writer
and through my writings
i have made more enemies than friends?
The biography of the greatest philosopher
will have fewer readers today
than the autobiography of a common harlot.
And with some audiences,
Barabbas will be more popular than Jesus.
*
If Judas had written his memoirs,
i suspect it would have been a perennial best-seller in Armenia.
*
To believe means to believe in one thing
and to reject a thousand other belief systems.
The believer is the true skeptic.
*
If you review the history of faith
you may notice that people have believed in all kinds of nonsense.
*
"We don't need critics,"
is the first half of a sentence, the other half being:
"We can go to the devil on our own."
*
Sacred cows make delicious shish kebab.
*
On more than one occasion I have been criticized as a critic on the grounds that criticism is a waste of time.
*
What is the difference between kibitzers and critics? A kibitizer's central concern is one-upmanship. A critic's central concern is exposing contradictions and charlatans.
*
Armenians in the Hemshin region on the Black Sea coast within the Ottoman Empire converted to Islam and survived the massacres. Armenian intellectuals of the Soviet era converted to atheism and were slaughtered in successive purges.
What is the difference between religion and ideology? Or, more specifically, between Islam and Communism?
The first speaks in the name of a "merciful and compassionate Allah," the second in the name of the brotherhood of all men. But both are used by power-hungry men as instruments of deception and when power speaks, God and ideals are silenced, and power has only one message: "Challenge me and you die!"
*
Only when your situation is hopeless will an Armenian wish you good luck.
*
The vulgar man knows that the most effective argument against good sense is hooliganism.
*
The Romans knew that the most fail-safe method to be masters of a tribal environment was to support one tribe against another and let them handle the rough stuff. Countless defeats, catastrophes and tragedies have not yet taught us the value of presenting a united front to the enemy. What are the chances that some day in the next two millennia our leadership will see the light?
*
A prayer: "If I am ever reincarnated as an Armenian, please God bless me with a thick skin even if it means being reincarnated as a crocodile."
*
Ever since one of our most celebrated writers of the Diaspora wrote a book about a moneyed nonentity in exchange of thirty silver pieces, I have trouble explaining even to my friends that I'd rather translate a writer I respect for nothing than a mediocrity for money.
*
American proverb: "The more arguments you win, the less friends you will have." Likewise, the more prejudices you expose….
*
One should not speak of music with a tone-deaf person, or of art with a blind man, or of feet with a cripple, or of honesty with an Armenian.
*
Separate an Armenian from Armenians and you may have a decent Frenchman, a charming Italian, a dashing Spaniard, even a civilized Turk; but leave him among Armenians and he will grow horns, hooves and the tail of a scorpion.

*

Saturday, October 18, 2003
*********************************
If kings can be beheaded, czars executed, dictators driven to suicide or hanged, and sultans forced into abdication, can anyone in a leadership position feel invulnerable?
*
If the written word is powerless to change things, why is it that Talaat and Stalin slaughtered our intellectual class? My guess is, they knew something our philistines do not: namely,
Everything begins and ends in the convolutions of the brain.
*
To those who say the deeds of our bosses, bishops and benefactors are more important than the words of our writers because actions speak louder than words, I ask: Who has been more influential in the history of mankind: Buddha, Socrates, and Jesus or Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan and Napoleon?
*
Our own history is lousy with men of action (emperors, kings, princes and nakharars): what have they done except to tribalize, divide, and demoralize the nation, and preside over its disintegration and death of a thousand cuts? And more to the point: What have our present-day bosses, bishops and benefactors learned from them except to repeat their blunders?
*
To be a millionaire means to live with the constant suspicion that your friends love your money more than they love you, and even those who really love you may prefer you dead than alive. This much said, however, I am not foolish enough to believe that the poor are better off, and if I had a choice I'd rather be a friendless millionaire than a popular pauper.
*
To all those who at one time or another have insulted or attempted to silence me, I say: I don't know who you are and I don't care to know.
But I do know this much: where you come from, writers were betrayed to the enemy and slaughtered like sheep. You may now choose on whose side you prefer to be.
*
It is true, not being a miracle worker I cannot change things but I can always live with the hope that some day I may succeed being the source of insomnia to at least one of our charlatans even if the insomnia lasts a fraction of a second.
*
Words have different meanings to different people. Consider the word patriotism as a case in point. To some it is a noble sentiment; to me it is the source of all wars and massacres; and to say my patriotism is good but my enemy's patriotism is bad is an oxymoron worthy of a moron.
*
I write about what I think and feel based on what I have seen and experienced. If your thoughts run in a different direction it may be because you base them on your own experiences which are different from mine. I don't see why I should base my thoughts on your experiences and vice versa. Finally, I write the way I write because no one is paying me to lie.
*
On the one hand you have those who say literature is irrelevant and critics useless, and on the other you have readers who are so outraged by what you write that they would gladly dance on your grave.
*
I harbor a special kind of contempt towards individuals who think just because they are members of a party or organization or gang, they are in a position to bully with impunity solitary outsiders.

Monday, October 20, 2003
****************************
To those of my readers who are outraged by what I write, I say: You, my friend, have a serious problem. But you are in luck because I have its solution: Stop reading me.
*
Bullies may be a tiny minority but they have prospered throughout history and continue to do so today because "Among ten men nine are sure to be women" (Turkish proverb), and (to paraphrase FDR), if man has nothing to fear, he will fear fear itself.
*
Marx saw more clearly than anyone else the evils of capitalism but was completely blind to the potential evils in communism. We Armenians knew all about the Turks, but we were completely ignorant of the West and we were thus easily taken in by its double talk. Which may suggest that nothing can be as dangerous as arrogance based on knowledge; and since there is no such thing as unlimited knowledge, all knowledge is bound to be limited and thefore, "little knowledge."
*
In our environment the fools speak, shout, sing, speechify and sermonize and the wise are silent.
*
I would like to meet an Armenian who is not intoxicated on himself or some obsolete ideology.
*
The only time what you say offends no one is when you say nothing.
*
The aim of education is not to deceive but to expose deceivers. Pity the nation whose educators are dupes.
*
Some people are interested in politics the way a fox is interested in hens.
*
Many years ago two prominent Armenians told me: "Scratch an Armenian and find a Turk." I have been told many other things but wiser men than myself but I have forgotten most of them. I remember this one because every day I see proofs of it.
*
It took us 600 years to be ottomanized. I am beginning to suspect it may take us 6000 years to be re-armenianized.
*
To some, life is an open road, to others a dead-end, to still others a vicious circle.
*
There is no such thing as an innocent dupe. Charlatanism prospers because of the active support of dupes.
*
What kinds of people get repeatedly massacred? The kind who are naïve enough to believe they can go on provoking a mad dog or a wounded tiger with impunity.