notes

[Guest arabaliozian]

CROSSROADS*******************We are now at a crossroads: do we detribalize and democratize our institutions or do we trust the judgment of our sermonizers and speechifiers who tell us we are in good hands, God is on our side, and whatever we do must be right because we are just about the smartest people on earth? If we use our past as an index, we do the wrong thing. For 600 years in the Ottoman Empire we did the wrong thing too. The question then was: do we stay put or do we get the #### out? Get out, said Raffi: Armenians have no future in a country where respect for human life is non-existent. But again we chose to take the advice of our tribalized leadership. Perhaps the function of an Armenian writer today is not to flatter the vanity of imbeciles by telling them they are right even when they are transparently and catastrophically wrong, but the exact opposite. Confronted with this decision, why should we be surprised if our writers prefer to recycle crap?WORDS OF WISDOM***************************Anonymous: "A snake sheds its skin, not its nature."*Jules Renard: "A little hate cleanses us of kindness."*La Rochefoucauld: "No man is clever enough to know all the evil he does."*Yiddish proverb: "One chops the wood, the other does the grunting."*Lana Turmer: "A gentleman is simply a patient wolf."*Marty Pollio: "I take my pet lion to church every Sunday. He has to eat."Monday, August 19, 2002****************************I am not against patriotism; I am against those who say "My patriotism is good, someone else’s patriotism is bad." Neither am I against bosses, bishops and benefactors; I am against abuses of power.*No matter what’s the subject of a conversation between a man and an attractive woman, the subtext is always the same: her ass.*I know now that trying to reason with Armenians is a waste of time and a symptom of a complex or some kind of unclassified psychological imbalance, and I look forward to the day when I will be rid of it.*Silence can also be an irrefutable argument.*For everything I know I don't know a thousand things. It is different with our dime-a-dozen experts on any given subject: not only do they know everything I know plus the thousand things that I don't know, but also the ten thousand things that I will never know.*The status of an Armenian writer is so low that anyone feels fully qualified to tell him what to think and write. If I were to operate in an odar environment, I would probably be paid a regular salary. Among Armenians my only recompense is being called an idiot by idiots.Tuesday, August 20, 2002******************************To expose a phony to an audience of phonies: not an easy task.*Anonymous: "Learn more, speak less." An irrelevant maxim for someone who thinks he already knows everything he needs to know.*Nothing comes easier to an Armenian than to confuse insolence with daring.*Wilson Mizner: "The worst-tempered people I have ever met were people who knew they were wrong."*Some of my critics remind me of the fact that in medieval times Armenian mercenaries were the most ferocious fighters money could buy.*It is a waste of time talking to someone from whom you can learn nothing and to whom you can teach even less.Wednesday, August 21, 2002*******************************After writing a line I ask myself, "Will it entertain my readers?" If the answer is yes, I discard it. It is not my intention to amuse or to flatter. I prefer to kick ass and make enemies. But sometimes, without meaning to, I also make friends – mistakes that are soon corrected. I am therefore proud to say some of my most dedicated enemies are former friends.*The quintessence of stupidity: While trying to make a good impression, to succeed only in making a nuisance of oneself. While trying to prove that we are tolerant, civilized and progressive, to prove the exact opposite. While trying to prove that we are better than Muslims, to expose ourselves as corrupt, hidebound, narrow-minded and fanatical as they are. In our efforts to prove that we didn't deserve to be massacred, to prove that we don't deserve to live.*In the words of a celebrated French comedian: "If I failed to offend anyone in my audience, please accept my apologies."____