1090 replies to this topic

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, December 15, 2002
*******************************
The Pope never said
"I prefer sodomizers to women priests,"
and our leaders never said
"We prefer the massacre
of women and children to subservience,"
but that’s what happened as a result of their policies.
We cannot shape a reality we don't understand;
and dialogue and democracy are better instruments of understanding
than monologue, dogmatism, and dictatorship.
*
What do our political parties and the Pope share in common?
Answer: Infallibility.
*
Another question that has been asked before
and deserves to be asked again:
Why is it that women qualify as saints but not as priests?
*
To say that a single brain, or ideology or religion
is sufficient to understand reality
is contradicted a thousand times by history.
And by history I don't mean the version of the past
provided by a single historian, ideologue, boss, bishop, or mullah.
*
My number one item on my wish list for the New Year:
To hear the words "I don't know" more often
from my fellow Armenians.
*
Only a megalomaniac thinks he can win argument
in an Armenian environment.
Which is why I prefer to question my adversary’s sanity
or tell him to go and be fruitful and multiply –
but not in so many words.
*
During the controversy surrounding Darwin’s theory of evolution,
an English clergyman insulted a scientist
by calling his ancestors apes, to which he scientist replied:
"Better an honest ape than an ignoramus and a charlatan like you."
I am not quoting; only paraphrasing and condensing.
*
As for solutions: we have more solutions than we have problems.
*
An Armenian who thinks:
"What the hell does he know? He is only a lousy Armenian,"
is probably right provided he also thinks:
"What the hell do I know? I am only a Turkish gypsy
pretending to be an Armenian."

[ara baliozian]

Monday, December 16, 2002
*********************************
I don't mind going down into the gutter once in a while
but I will be damned if I will follow them down into the sewer.
*
I no longer buy stationery.
Instead, I use the back of envelopes sent by Armenian fund-raisers.
*
Armenians are the only people on earth
who produce more experts than there are fields of expertise.
*
An Armenian is an intellectual capitalist
even when he happens to be a Bolshevik
of the post-Stalin Stalinist kind.
*
All cultures have their Dark Ages.
Ours is at its apex today.
*
A foolproof fool is one who even as he tries
to prove he is not a fool succeeds only in proving
the exact opposite.
*
All leaders assume they are smarter than the people
until they are thrown out of office, assassinated, or beheaded.
*
Armenianism as defined by our chauvinists and charlatans
is 50% recycled crap and 50% mumbo jumbo.
*
Everything that you do unto others will be done unto you.
*
What could be more redundant than freedom of speech
to someone who is in the business of recycling crap?
*
When it comes to Christmas I am a Scrooge.
I think Dickens would have written a better book had he met me.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, December 17, 2002
**********************************
When Odian uses the word "hairenapaghtsoutiun"
(nostalgia or longing for the homeland)
he has in mind not Armenia but the Ottoman Empire
and more particularly Istanbul.
He mentions the case of an Armenian writer in Alexandria
whose longing became so irresistible that
he returned to Istanbul where we was warned
he would be arrested and jailed,
and he was arrested and jailed.
*
I am personally acquainted with an Armenian
born and raised in America
who fell in love with America only after visiting Armenia.
I am even acquainted with an Armenian-American poet
whose dislike of Armenians increased
after he visited Turkey and acquired Turkish friends.
*
Since Armenians are the least impressionable people in the world
("Why couldn't you rise on the second day?")
you can easily guess how little an Armenian knows
about his fellow Armenians by the amount of time he wastes
trying to impress them.
*
There is only one way to impress Armenians
and that’s by impressing odars.
*
Armenians love dead Armenians.
They have something against the living
on account of they are guilty of being alive.
I suspect even my enemies will love me after I drop dead
if only because I will no longer be alive.
*
To be an Armenian and to deal with Armenians
is an endless exercise in degradation.
This has been my experience.
I do hope you have had better luck….
*
Such a pity that Axel Bakounts’s famous words
"They are savage beast and they are tearing me to shreds!"
were his last rather than his first.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, December 18, 2002
*********************************
The easiest way to create a nation of dupes
is to brainwash them to believe
they are just about the smartest people on earth.
If they believe that, they will believe anything!
*
It has been said that it is impossible to live in New York City
for 24 hours and love one’s fellow men.
What about living in the Ottoman Empire for 600 years?
*
In our environment criticism has changed no one
and reformed nothing. And yet, we continue to engage in criticism
because we all suffer from a complex
peculiar to all small nations: megalomania.
*
An instant of megalomania run amok:
She wants me to read, review, and translate her poetry
but she tells me she herself doesn't have time
to read Homer and Shakespeare.
*
He who said there are more dupes than people
sure knew what he was talking about.

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, December 19, 2002
********************************
In his memoirs Odian is more than willing to confess that
in order to survive outside Istanbul
he had to work for charlatans
and whenever the occasion presented itself
to engage in charlatanism.
Odian writes these things not for the sake
of accuracy or objectivity but as if to say,
"See how smart I was!"
He actually brags and expects his readers to congratulate him.
*
In one of his essays collected in
THE SUNDAY ISSUE OF MY PAPER Shahnour
not only accuses Siamanto of plagiarizing Maeterlinck
but he also cites half a dozen instances.
*
One of our elder statesmen once said that
Zarian had sold his host’s furniture
and pocketed the money;
and that Oshagan had written a book about a wealthy mediocrity
who had agreed to pay for his services.
*
I experience cultural shock whenever I meet a new Armenian.
*
If to a fool you speak like a fool he will think you wise.
*
Why even bother loving your enemy
if with less effort you can make ten new friends?
*
The most important lesson experience teaches is that
life is a succession of unique experiences.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, December 20, 2002
*******************************
What if the universe is a work of fiction
by a god that is getting bad reviews by other gods?
*
Yervant Odian: "It is the destiny of all beautiful ideas
to remain unrealized."
*
There is a scene in Mahari’s memoirs
that is pure theater of the absurd reminiscent of
Beckett, Ionesco and Pinter.
For the first time in his life Mahari is drunk.
It’s past midnight. He wanders into a park
and sits on a bench.
He is joined by a lady of the night.
MAHARI: Who are you?
LADY: Who are you?
MAHARI: I am me.
LADY: I am not me. There was a time when I too was me
but now…I don't know who I am…Got any money on you?
*
It has been said that sacred cows make
the most delicious shish-kebab.
*
Never say you know an Armenian
until you have disagreed with him.
*
If we are as smart as we think we think we are
and if the Turks are as dumb as we say they are,
we should have no difficulty in convincing them that
if they eat broken glass they will shit diamonds.
*
You cannot conduct a civilized conversation with a barbarian,
especially a barbarian who thinks he is more civilized than you –
which is the worst kind of barbarian.
*
Nothing comes easier to an Armenian
than to assume that anyone who disagrees with him
must be either stupid or evil.
*
It has been said that a politician will promise
anything – a bridge to a riverless town,
truffles to swine,
chickens to foxes,
sheep to wolves,
cobras to mongooses,
dissidents to Bolsheviks,
giaours to devout Muslims,
Jews to anti-Semites,
and Armenians to Armenians.
*
If you speak honestly in the presence of a handful of Armenians
at least one of them will start looking for a rope,
a tree, and a mob with which to lynch you.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, December 21, 2002
********************************
Talaat and Kemal are our friends,
Lenin our Uncle,
Bolsheviks our Big Brothers,
and Stalin the Biggest Brother of them all – or is it
the Biggest Mother?
Dopes led by dupes!
Our history in a nutshell.
As for heroes – let’s not forget them!
We have more heroes than we have saints, martyrs, and victims.
We have more heroes than we have people.
And the number of their exploits exceeds
the number of stars in the heavens
and grains of sand of all the beaches and deserts of the world.
Even a thousand Homers could not do justice to them.
*
Many years ago when I came to Canada
and visited Detroit regularly,
I was surprised to discover that no one wanted to argue with me.
Now I too see no point in arguing with loud-mouth dopes and dupes.
*
They tell me my criticism is negative, non-constructive,
sometimes even destructive. If that were true
I would now by buried beneath of Mount Ararat of ruins and skeletons.
*
Why is it that nearly a century after Yervant Odian
published his COMRADE PANCHOONIE
we have more panchoonies than ever?
Every other day I receive a letter
from one of our panchoonie organizations
using his celebrated punch line:
"Mi kich pogh oughargetsek" (Send us a little money).
*
Chezoks (neutrals or non-partisans) are parasites,
I was told by our partisans whenever I identified myself as one.
And then I read Hitler’s dictum:
"It is not the neutrals who make history,"
and I knew on whose knees our partisans had learned their civics.
*
You can easily guess how humorless an Armenian is
by how seriously he takes himself.
Sometimes I feel like a stand-up comedian
who is read and attacked by philosopher-statesmen.
Once upon a time we had heroes.
Now we have philosopher-statesmen.
*
Most Armenians know more about Turks than about Armenians
and the chances are what they know about Armenians
is recycled crapola based on hearsay.
*
Be decent, be honest, use your common sense:
all ideologies and religions boil down to this simple message.
On the day mankind realizes this,
bureaucrats, priests and mullahs will go out of business
and we shall have no more wars and revolutions.

[nairi]

What?

Great posts again.

Nairi

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, December 22, 2002
*******************************
Our unspoken national motto:
"To learn nothing and to forget nothing."
*
I think, therefore I can't be a good Armenian.
*
I am often accused of hating Armenians.
What utter nonsense!
I don't hate all Armenians if only because
I don't know all of them.
I hate only Armenians I know.
*
I never say anything that I don't suspect
in the present company.
*
On first hearing Chopin’s music,
Schumann is quoted as having said:
"Hats off, gentlemen – a genius!"
Almost every day I hear myself saying:
"Hats on, Armenians – another charlatan!"
*
To be a good Armenian
it is not necessary to be a good human being.
As a matter of fact, some of the worst scumbags I know
happen to be good Armenians.
*
I have heard it said that
there is no such thing as a good Turk and that
a good Turk is probably an Armenian.
I wonder if Turks say the same thing about good Armenians.
*
If I am ever asked what is my greatest contribution
to Armenian literature, I will say: "I survived."
*
Armenians have been merciless towards their writers.
I don't see why I should take any prisoners.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, December 23, 2002
********************************
We are told Ararat is a dormant volcano.
My guess is it will wake up on the day it is returned to us.
*
Speaking of room temperature:
does an igloo qualify as a room?
*
It is written: "Never wish good luck to someone
who is trying to kill you."
*
Ask an Armenian to spell dialogue
and the chances are he will spell it duelogue.
*
It is written: "Where facts are few, experts are many."
*
Because I loathe brainwashed religious fanatics
who murder innocent women and children
in the name of a "merciful and compassionate" Allah
I am called a racist by Armenians
who harbor a genocidal hatred of Jews,
Americans (because they are pro-Israel),
and Western Civilization (because it is Judeo-Christian).
Figure that one out if you can.
*
If you analyze the causes of our miseries
you will invariably end up with loud-mouth
self-assessed smart Armenians
who speak like brainless Turks.
*
Joan of Arc did all the hard work
while Noah discussed labor problems with the Lord over schnapps.
But since the Bible was written by men
her name isn't even mentioned there.
*
Change things? Me? Nah!
All I am trying to do is have some fun
at the expense of our dirtbags.

[sen_Vahan]

"I think, therefore I can't be a good Armenian."



But I think, so I am

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, December 24, 2002
*******************************
Pure-blooded Armenians?
I agree with the historian who said
mankind is a mongrel species.
*
It is written: "Bury the hatchet
but remember where you buried it."
*
You may take yourself as seriously as you like
for as long as you like provided you keep in mind that
in the eyes of some you will always remain a figure of fun.
*
When I speak of Armenians
I have in mind only Armenians I have known.
I speak of rules not of exception,
and it goes without saying that
every Armenian I have known
thinks of himself as an exception to all existing rules.
*
Once upon a time I too thought of myself as unique and special;
but then I realized I was like everything else
and I felt liberated.
*
If you convince a man that he is in fact
a barbarian, a dope, and an ignoramus,
don't expect to have his gratitude and affection.
*
Everyone has his way of judging a nation.
I judge nations by the manner in which
they treat their writers – not the dead but the living.
*
Scratch an Armenian and the chances are
you will find a toothless Turk.
*
You should be more optimistic, they tell me
with the tone of voice they order pizza with or without anchovies
thus confirming my pessimism.
*
I am personally acquainted with Armenians
who hate televangelists but love mullahs
and they love mullahs not because mullahs are lovable
but because mullahs hate Jews.
*
If I remember correctly it was Einstein (a Jew) who said,
if you want to form an accurate idea of infinity
think of human stupidity.

[ara baliozian]

Wednesday, December 25, 2002
*********************************
I write, therefore I am an optimist.
I try to reason with my fellow Armenians,
therefore my sanity should be questioned.
*
If Armenians were as smart as they think they are,
China’s rulers would now be Armenians
pretending to be Chinamen.
As for Turkey’s rulers:
they are probably Armenians but are too dumb to know.
*
And speaking of Chinamen:
You have no doubt heard the story about the Chinaman
who complained that everyone called him Sneeze
and when asked what his name was, he said
"Hep Chou."
*
Simenon’s biographers tell us
he published 721 books,
fornicated with ten thousand women
and fathered two children one of whom committed suicide.
*
I grew up in an Armenian ghetto in Greece
during World War II but I never thought
being poor in time of war and living on foreign soil
were problems until I read a book on sociology.
*
There was a time when
most of the phone calls I received were from
Armenian poets who wanted me to review or translate
their verse. The only people who call me these days
are telemarketers and thank God for that.
*
An Armenian will detect the presence of someone else’s baloney
a mile off but will ignore the stench of his own crap
even if he swims in it.
*
Armenians are such sensitive readers that
they may be permanently damaged by a misplaced comma.
*
My epitaph: "Here lies a minor scribbler
who was read by philosopher-kings."

[ara baliozian]

Thursday, December 26, 2002
********************************
To a confirmed anti-Semite
a Jew is a Jew and the only good Jew is a dead Jew.
You may have noticed by now that
the slogan DEATH TO JEWS does not come
with a footnote that says "Except women and children."
Genocidal hatred means hating unto death everyone,
including the unborn.
At the turn of the century the Turks too said
an Armenian is an Armenian
and the only good Armenian is a dead Armenian.
No exceptions made.
No footnotes included.
And the tragedy is not that
we have learned – or they have taught us –
to hate unto death – and to hate not only the enemy
but also our own kind – but that we don't know
and we refuse to know the many secret ways in which
history penetrates our bloodstream
and shapes our inner world.
The thought that the Turks may have had anything to do
with recreating us in their own image is so alien
and repellent to us that we shake it off like a nightmare vision
and sink back into our comfortable clichés
and elementary school platitudes taught to us by
provincial schoolmasters and dupes.

[ara baliozian]

Friday, December 27, 2002
*******************************
Readers with constipated minds
are prone to attacks of verbal diarrhea.
*
By washing our dirty linen in public
I besmirch our image in the eyes of the world,
I am told once in a while by concerned citizens.
Shakespeare said worse things about British royalty
and Shakespeare was Shakespeare
not a minor Armenian scribbler
writing in an environment dominated by philosopher-kings.
*
The challenge an Armenian writer confronts today
is to live in A.D. and to explain things
to an audience that lives in B.C.
*
Speaking of an Armenian poet
who after publishing a collection of verse fell silent,
Gourgen Mahari writes: "W hat happened to him?
Did he drown in a river or was he cannibalized by our critics?"
*
On the subject of moral superiority:
once upon a time the Americans made fun of the redneck slogan
KILL A COMMIE FOR CHRIST.
In the Middle East today they say
KILL A JEW FOR ALLAH and no one even smiles.
*
The prospect of reading the contents
of an Armenian discussion forum these days
is as pleasant as that of dissecting the intestines of a hyena
that has dined on dead skunks.
*
Our national sport?
Stabbing one another in the back
and arguing endlessly that the wound was self-inflicted.
*
Only an Armenian knows what it feels like being
a man without a country and without countrymen.

[ara baliozian]

Saturday, December 28, 2002
********************************
It is written: "It takes a great deal of knowledge
to know how little you know."
*
It is not at all inconsistent for a man
to abdicate his humanity for the sake of his belief system.
*
Likewise, it is not at all unusual
to be against capital punishment and for genocide.
*
Some men fall so low that
they make themselves inaccessible to scorn.
*
An Armenian will prefer to live in darkness
for the rest of his life if seeing the light
also means conceding that
as a human being he could be wrong.
*
I don't make fun of idiots,
only of idiots who think of themselves as philosopher-kings,
and more kings than philosophers.
And kings who given the chance
would gladly exterminate half of mankind
in the name of justice or compassion.
That’s the way it is with charlatans long on cunning
and short on brains. Give them a minute
and they will come up with a thousand reasons why
genocide is an act of mercy and blind hatred a patriotic duty.
*
Sometimes the best way to encourage a man
is to point out his mistakes; this of course does not apply
to men who are infallible or Armenian.
*
Once upon a time there was a writer
who, whenever he received a critical letter from one of his readers,
would sign and forward a printed message that said:
"Thank you for your letter. I shall try to do better."

[ara baliozian]

Sunday, December 29, 2002
******************************
A smart racist will never identify himself as one
but as a broadminded compassionate liberal,
after which he will feel free to support racists.
A smart anti-Semite will never identify himself as one
but he will suggest that since none of us knows everything,
it is safe to assume that the Jews
had a finger in every crime against humanity,
and sometimes not just a finger but a hand and a foot…
perhaps they were even in it up to their filthy necks.
To make a long story short:
It is beyond dispute that the Jews have been
and continue to be the source of all evil.
A smart fascist will never identify himself
as an admirer of Hitler or Saddam,
instead he will parade as an expert on contemporary affairs
who has read all the right pundits
and knows more than the rest of us
and what he knows is that
fascism is an ideology and
like all ideologies it has negative as well as positive features.
A true Stalinist will never say Stalin was a great leader;
what he will say is that,
if Stalin was the devil incarnate,
why is it that statesmen like Roosevelt and Churchill,
or Nobel Prize winners like Russell and Sartre,
were on his side?
A genuine bloodthirsty genocidal fanatic
will not identify himself as someone
who would support the extermination of a race or a continent;
instead, he will support suicidal fanatics
who chant such slogans as
DEATH TO JEWS and
DEATH TO AMERICA.
A smart dirtbags will never identify himself as one –
at least, though I have met many dirtbags
none of them has ever said,
"Allow me to introduce myself, I am a dirtbags!"
An authentic dirtbags will identify himself
as a noble specimen of humanity
who stands for equality, liberty and fraternity,
after which he will proceed to call you a dirtbags
and having done so he will say
"Nothing further, your Honor,"
and sit down with the certainty that once more
he has been successful in fooling a jury of dopes.
*
Everyone has an angle.
As for honesty and truth:
these are abstractions to be used, not lived.

[ara baliozian]

Monday, December 30, 2002
******************************
Twenty years ago I published a book
in which I said Armenians are nice, friendly,
tolerant, intelligent, creative, and progressive.
Ever since then God has been sending me Armenians
of the opposite disposition.
No lie goes unpunished.
*
Almost every other Armenian I know
has either sued, threatened to sue, or thought of suing
a fellow Armenian. The others are satisfied in being
each other’s carcinogenic agents.
*
The more devastating insults to lawyers I have ever read
is by Samuel Johnson who is said
to have remarked – I am now quoting from memory:
"I don't wish to speak evil of anyone
but I believe the gentleman in question is an attorney?"
*
To be a popular Armenian writer,
ask your audience what they want to hear and repeat it to them.
To be universally hated,
write what you observe and think.
*
Life is tough on everyone,
which is why revenge is redundant.
Do what comes easy and let life handle the rough stuff.
*
I prefer the English word "spoiled" to the Armenian "shepatsats."
Spoiled also means not fit for human consumption,
rotten, useless, likely toxic, possibly lethal,
to be discarded into the nearest trash can.
*
If you silence dissenting voices
you may have unanimity and the semblance of solidarity
but only at the cost of free speech, dialogue, democracy,
human rights, progress and civilization.
*
An Armenian discussion forum should have the following warning:
"Participation in this forum may be hazardous to your mental health."
*
No one can be as transparently laughable as a nobody
who tries to project the image of a somebody.
*
The more brainwashed you are,
the least aware you are of having been brainwashed.

[ara baliozian]

Tuesday, December 31, 2002
********************************
It is written: "It takes a great man
to deal with catastrophe and an even greater one
to prevent it."
I am afraid to say this but it must be said:
during our millennial history great men have been
an absent factor in our catastrophes.
*
You cannot disarm an enemy by flattering him.
Remember the old Indian proverb:
"The cobra will bite you whether you call it
cobra or Mr. Cobra."
Armenian translation: A jackass will kick you in the teeth
whether you call it jackass or Baron Jack S. Avanakian.
*
Disagreements are inevitable
when one side speaks of symbols (Armenianism)
and the other of reality (Armenians).
Symbols are one-dimensional abstractions.
Reality is a collection of an infinite number
of complexities, mysteries and enigmas,
and as such beyond anyone’s grasp.
The best we can hope to do is unravel one of them,
or, if we can't do that, to move in the right direction.
The alternative is recycling crap
and eventually burying ourselves in it
(our present shituation).
*
It is said that "Money can't buy friends,
but you do get a better class of enemy."
Since my income as a minor Armenian scribbler is negative
(I lose more than I make), which means,
the income bracket of a bag lady in Calcutta
is higher than mine,
I can't even afford to have scum-sucking sewer rats as enemies.
Which is why I can assert with some degree of certainty
that I have no enemies,
only friends who hate me,
fans who despise me,
and readers who don't read me.
Every Armenian is therefore my brother,
even if he is Cain to my Abel, or, if you prefer,
the other way around.
*
It is the easiest thing in the world
to offend a man who takes himself seriously;
all you have to do is take him less seriously,
or to insinuate that no matter how hard you try
you cannot share his high…make it very high…
make it extremely high opinion of himself.
*
There is a type of Armenian
who is incapable of expressing a simple disagreement,
he must also assume a holier-than-thou,
smarter-than-all-of-you,
and more-Armenian-than-Vartan Mamigonian-and General Antranik combined
attitude, with a p.s. that says:
"Butter wouldn't melt in my perforation."
And it is this final assertion that renders the others inoperative.
*
Here is another standard reply to unsolicited criticism:
"I am obliged by your opinions, and I retain my own."

[nairi]

Ara jan, happy New Year!