[B]Thursday, October 13, 2005
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There are many ways to belittle a writer’s work and to insult a man and I have heard them all. Here are some samples.
-You are a disgrace to your nation.
-What’s your point?
-Was your mother a Turkish whore?
-You repeat yourself.
-You are a racist.
-Why don’t you say something we don’t know?
-A dealer in verbal crapola.
-Gobbledygook.
-You are a denialist.
-Booooooooooooring!
-You are a fool.
-Son of a bitch.
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Is it conceivable that the only thing we have learned from our Ottoman and Bolshevik experiences is intolerance?
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Why is it that in order to prove their superior brand of patriotism some of my readers find it necessary to go down into the gutter?
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And to think that some of these ladies and gentlemen think they are qualified to reform and civilize the Turks.
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Dealing with fellow Armenians builds character, provided you survive the experience.
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Friday, October 14, 2005
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We treat our satirists not as social critics but as comedians; we silence our dissidents; we discard anti-Armenian odars as Turcophiles (meaning the lowest scum on earth); and we believe in our own assertions of moral and intellectual superiority. All of which combine to make of us a nation in denial. And if our pundits and academics ignore our contradictions and concentrate their efforts on documenting the massacres and exposing Turkish lies, it may be because it is not popular to criticize a nation that has sustained a near-mortal wound. Either that or they follow an old American political maxim that says, “You don’t kill a man who is committing suicide.”
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About anti-Armenian odars: it makes little sense to label them as Turcophiles. All nations have their critics, why should we be an exception?
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Once, when Napoleon said, “All Italians are thieves!” his interlocutor replied, “Buona parte,” (meaning, not all of them but a good fraction).
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Saturday, October 15, 2005
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THE ARMENIAN CONNECTION
This year’s Nobel Prize winner for Literature is Harold Pinter who was greatly influenced by Arthur Adamov, a cofounder (with Beckett and Ionesco) of the Theater of the Absurd. It is to be noted that Adamov (an Armenian), Beckett (an Irishman) and Ionesco (a Rumanian) lived in Paris and wrote in French because their own homeland did not provide them with a friendly environment. In the same way that money goes to money, great writers go to great cultures. And Harold Pinter is a Jew who lives in London and writes in English.
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A THOUSAND AND ONE SMILES
If I were to name the funniest book in the world it would be neither Stalin’s COLLECTED WORKS nor Castro COMPLETE SPEECHES but THE COMPLETE CARTOONS OF THE NEW YORKER: ALL 68,647 CARTOONS EVER PUBLISHED IN THE MAGAZINE. There is a smile here on every page and a belly laugh ever five or six pages. It is not only the funniest but also the biggest and heaviest book I have ever handled. Take all your vitamins before you decide to carry it home from the library or your nearest bookstore.
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THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE WEST
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are major scandals, of course, but infinitely worse is the fact that Sinatra and Elvis sold more records than Sibelius and Elgar; and worse, much worse: the Beatles made more money than Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, and Bartok combined.
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