Thursday, June 22, 2006
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Once in a while I am compared to such famous writers as Camus, Mencken, and Vidal only to be told that I am a total mediocrity and a miserable failure.
I don’t mind admitting that no matter how hard I try I will never be as good a writer as Camus and Vidal, or Arlen and Saroyan. But I hope my detractors will agree with me when I say, if I were as good a writer as they are, I would be treated with such respect by my fellow Armenians that no one would dare to say anything remotely critical about me; and if anyone did, my fans would tear the poor bastard to shreds.
As a better writer, moreover, I would have been exposed to an entirely different set of experiences and thus would have acquired an entirely different perspective on my fellow Armenians. I might even have been misled into thinking that Armenians are indeed among the Chosen. That’s because, even the greatest of writers have an ego that is not immune to flattery.
If I write as I do it may be because I write not as a first-class giant in world literature but as a second-rate scribbler; and if God in His infinite wisdom made me who I am, namely a mediocrity and a failure, He must have done so for a purpose, and who am I to question His judgment?
Do I really believe I am a mediocrity? That is not a question that I would even consider replying because experience has taught me to assess oneself is to make an ass of oneself. Besides, trying to be honest in a dishonest world keeps me so busy that I consider it a waste of time to engage in endless speculations and controversies about intangibles with men who seem to be more interested in who I am and less in what I say, more on my status and less on the reality we confront.
However, I will say this in my favor: if readers who have read Camus, Vidal, Saroyan, Mencken, Arlen, and many other great writers take the trouble to read and assess me, then I must be going places.
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Friday, June 23, 2006
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FROM HOMER TO HITLER
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The Greeks had a word for everything, but I doubt if they had one for miscegenation, perhaps because even their gods fornicated with mortals. (How low can you get?)
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By inventing fornicating gods, the Greeks may have understood that if fornication with mortals was uppermost in their gods’ minds, why should we pretend to be any better?
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By proscribing fornication, Christianity invented a literary genre (fiction) whose central concern is fornication. But the Greeks were ahead of the rest of us there too – after all, is not adultery what propels the action in the ILIAD?
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To how many of our racists I could say, “Please, don’t waste your breath on me. I too have read MEIN KAMPF.”
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Saturday, June 24, 2006
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In the following definition from THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY, Ambrose Bierce was not thinking of Armenians but he might as well have been: “RESPONSIBILITY: A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.”
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When asked what he knows now that he did not know on the first day of his presidency, Bush is said to have said something to the effect that he had learned to be more careful in his choice of words. It is to be noted that he did not say he learned to be more careful in his thinking or more objective in his judgment or more tolerant of opposing views and arguments, only more carefully with his vocabulary.
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Don’t tell me what you should think; tell me what you think. On second thought, don’t tell me what you think because when an Armenian says what he thinks, out pops an insult.
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By insulting another we also insult ourselves by exposing the absence of reason in our thinking, lack of manners in our conduct; and if we speak in the name of God and Country we also run the risk of exposing the moral bankruptcy of both.
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