Zachem liubit', zachem stradat', kol' vse puti vedut...OR....In Bed with Russia

 

Zachem liubit' zachem stradats kol' vse puti vedut v kravat'" (A Russian proverb)

"Why to love, why to suffer if all the roads lead to bed" (English please!)

***

Imagine a wedding scene where the groom - US is about to tie the knowt with the bride - Russia. It's the biggest red carpet event of the world, all the media of the world have pre-booked this day in advance, tehre's tight secutiry around the world around the clock, the guests are exquisite couples of countries either in happy marriage or a sad one, about to devorce, or recently widowed. The priest of a suspiciously mixed up denomination resembling neither man nor woman, neither an animal, nor a plant, some kind of a permanent fixture that's been continuously blessing all the major global world events and meetings of all calibers and diameters starting from the UN, passing through G6, G7, G8, G10, G12, G15, G20, IFIs, ending in the EU and wherever there's a huge union about to happen (the Gulf states, for example). 

So, this priest raises his holy guacamoly of a blessing item and utters "Dearly beloved, we're gathered here today to join these two in a holy matre-patre-mony for the sake of generations to come. You shall love each other in poverty or immeasurable riches, n health and in crippled crisis times, you're to love each other even when cheating or inclining to on one another". He then gives a long speeh on how long so many generations hoped that after hundreds of years of continuous murderous hatred, actual Wars and threats of War, the couple's dating history has kept the entire world at their info screens (relevant to that period's information tools and techs). he mildly mentions the "necessary" occasional millions of victims that had to be sacrificed for this holy day to arrive. 

Then he takes a long pause, looks into the groom and bride's eyes praisingly and says "I now pronounce you a husband and wife. You may kiss the bride". And just when the cheers of crowd applauds to the couple's first warm embrace as a married couple - the priest/non-Priest pulls out a package somewhere from one of his pockets and addresses the couple "I couldn't let you go just like this! Here's my gift to you, a packaged honeymoon trip to Afghanistan, all expenses covered. Enjoy a decade of sunshine and desert conquering and let's hope you'll come out of it stronger as a couple than ever before"...(more... http://grishoyedova.blogspot.com/p/politicsnmore.html)

Beauty and the Beast : The Mall and the Middle East

 The old story of Beauty volunteering to become hostage to the Beast to save her father. She uses the Beast's library to educate herself and get control over the Beast and eventually bring him to the light of righteousness.

***

As hot as August maybe in the tiny Europe of the Middle East - Lebanon - there's no escape but to take a refuge in the Mall. Malls are the I Ching of summer survival. This idea can potentially be pushed further and claim that the Mall is the I Ching of survival in Lebanon in particular and in the wider Middle East without the necessity of being particular. 

If in Moscow, threatened by the heat, one can easily hide inside grandiose museums not merely for hours, but you can spend entire months of summer strolling inside, of course paying entrance fee each time, BUT, getting both educated and well preserved in delicate temperatures destined for safekeeping of masterpieces for as long as eternity. If caught up in the sudden heat in Northern Europe, you can always hop on an air-conditioned train and move to a culturally rich neighboring town for a touristic day or two that also offers less heat a degree or two. There are many options, indeed. (More... http://grishoyedova.blogspot.com/p/business-talk.html )

Azda'k, Azdaki'r, Azdaku'r Can there be an answer to Autism in Armenian?

  Back when Armenia was a component of USSR, and I was old enough to read, write and scroll through the shelves of Yerevan's bookstores filled in with fresh from the oven publications and books, I had developed an automatic sense of detecting any titles written by Artashes Kalantaryan. He was the most diplomatic of all writers. No, not in the sense of overtly praising the benefits of living in USSR, while covertly damning the system. But in a much direct sense, in a much needed sense. He'd write on morals and taboos, the falsehoods and virtues of our values. he'd analyze everything from an historic perspective, yet be precise in descriptions of mother-in-laws vs daughter-in-laws, appartchiks vs "ordinary" people, bus drivers vs. passengers, nurses vs. patients etc. Most of all, I adored the nearly divine decency of the humour he'd apply to his descriptions of otherwise gloomy realities of dialectic materialism wrapped onto our lives.

There was one from his days as an editor at a rather respected publication, whereby authors would come in and show their masterpieces for his approval. And he'd describe one whose only gift was perseverance without a hint of a writer's charisma. He'd come in and show a thick box file "pregnant" with a Soviet-era historic novel, get rejected, then come back with a collection of short stories, get rejected, come back with poetry and essays, get rejected, come back with felietons (a form of political satyr condoned by Soviet cultural censorship guidelines), get rejected, come back with biographies, get rejected etc... And so on and so forth until one day a miracle happened, ONE story, just one story got through. And as Kalantarian pointed out, he praised the writer saying he could from now on consider himself an amateur writer with a hope of progression. (more... http://grishoyedova.blogspot.com/p/oh-autism-my-autism.html )

Have You Asked? vs. Have You Asked... Or the Cost of Keeping One's Laundry ALL Clean

To all those urging people to move to Armenia, have you ever talked to an immigrant "hayastantsi" in your community, have you asked why and how they left, have you asked how painful that decision of cutting the umbilical cord from a shameful statehood for the love of homeland was, have you asked how they live in an invisible in-between state between an unbearable state and an un-integrating local community? ASK!

 *** 

There's a war of emotions going online and live wherever Armenians meet. The armies are divided between those who are for repatriation and those against. And of course there's a third group of the disengaged, who simply are indifferent to put it softly, and don't care to put it realistically. While emotionally, at this stage, I'm against these reignited campaigns for repatriation, I am in a way also FOR the repatriation, a view that comes with a list of items starting with but and/or if, channelled through a concept known us constructive process to be delivered by a conglomerate of interests provided for all the vested groups. (more... http://grishoyedova.blogspot.com/p/essays.html )

What's in the Name - High Functioning Autism Spectrum

A very brief yet to-the-point description of High Functioning autism from www.answers-about-autism.info . 

High Functioning Autism (HFA) is the name of the condition of individuals who display some of the symptoms of autism, but who are also able to function at a level close to, or above the normal level in society. High Functioning Autism is sometimes also known as Asperger syndrome. In layman terms, those who are affected by High Functioning Autism may be labeled as being "eccentrics", "nerd", "geeks", or termed a "little professor".

The term Asperger Syndrome is sometimes used in the same sense as High Functioning Autism, but the exact difference between Autism, Asperger Syndrome, and High Functioning Autism will vary. There is a wide range of deficiencies, as well as talents found in High Functioning Autism, the precise configuration of which can vary widely between individuals. 

(more... http://grishoyedova.blogspot.com/p/oh-autism-my-autism.html )

Official Note of Greek Irony to the Government of Turkey upon the Latter's Threat on Deportation of 15000 Armenians in Turkey

"Dear Colleagues,

Having gone through multiple deportations - garnished with massacres, grab of any form of property and a seemingly forever close-up on any form of survival of our devoredly Armenian identity - over the past 6 centuries, finalized with the ULTIMATE one in 1915, we would like to inform You that our country will happily embrace its children back. There is one precondition, though. Given the times have changed and the many EU requirements for loving, neighborly, counter-adoring relations between EU pretenders, we'd much appreciate your kind and early notification on the routes of deportation. More importantly, we'd like to know of the methods of deportation to be used, e.g. walking through the plains and mountains, accompanied with occassional beatings, murders and/or massacres/.../ via any other form of transportation - bicycles, cars, airplanes, trains, boats (in this case, do keep in mind that ours is a landlocked country), donkeys, mules and/or cammels. (more... http://grishoyedova.blogspot.com/p/politicsnmore.html)

Nargile+Lebanon=Che Guevara

Prelude...

The radio was playing an Arabic song, or rather a song in Arabic that i knew so very well - the tunes of "Comandante Che Guevara". I thought he's so loved in the Middle East, they translated the whole song. half a second later I felt how I detested it, how no other version but the Spanish could relate the story any better, even to those who speak no Spanish. I expressed this though outloud and the driver laughed his victorious laugh, the one that means "Lady, your perception of the Arabic is very embryonic". he explained it was a commercial for a nargile. Nargile is most fashionable. Well, it's always been. But add nargile to the booming semi-pubbing everything and anything industry and you've got yourself a profitable business in the ancient land of phoenicians.

It's not the pub, it's what the pub...

One can't ask for a full scale pub as we know it in Europe, well, Northern EU Member States, to be precise. I, too, being a proud outcast from the land of Eurasia, a fancy word the ex-USSR citizens like to associate with, never particularly liked being in the pub, but as an Irish friend explained to me - "you shouldn't focus on the pub, you should focus on what the pub represents", e.g.

-close to the office,

-accessible for anger management and burger+cigarettes+beer combination at lunchtime,

-a place to write one of those lousy office reports required either by your underlings or upperlings,

-emergency relationship discussion spot at a random 3pm meeting with a friend,

-Happy Hours,

-Friday evening after-work gathering of all colleagues to get relatively drunk in order to better strategize how to construct the bridge, under which to release the murky waters of damaged relationships caused by office politics,

-Saturday night live bands, hopeful meetings with a one-night-stand-turned-into-regular-date-turned-into-girl/boy/friend-with-a-potential-of-a-life-partner, and

-Sunday hangover cures at 4pm....

-Something interesting to talk about on Monday morning at the office...

Yes, the Eurasian me found this long list too demanding, too much waste of time, money, energy. I'd prefer a place that for European standards would be considered too fancy. What if I wanted to wear something really really nice, put a nice make-up, go out with friends to a fancy place where I could have something I can't cook in my kitchen (which I think the standard for anyone going to restaurants, hence, the simplicity of menus anywhere North of Vienna for a what American's call "an average citizen" in terms of economic and social standing), not discuss office politics, not be obliged to be too close to various perspirations of people around me, not fight for a chair, not sit at a table from mahogany that's been absorbing too much pub humidity and scents witness to remnants of someone else's physical and spiritual pub antiques and/or antics, not really try and convince someone that I'm REALLY married and only at the pub because it's a TEAM-BUILDING trip, not try and explain why even though I'm from Armenia, I'm not from Russia and no, it wasn't them who attacked Georgia first... What if I wanted to return home looking exactly as sober and fresh as when I left home... usually, I'd end up making a long list of compromises-vs-requirements every single time I had to face the pub, even if it was a friend's birthday party.

Enter Lebanon...

Knowing how much insufferable my Saturday night fever was, some nearly felt sorry for my departure to Lebanon, as if I'd be stuck somewhere in public-transportation-less Beirut just as murky waters under a bridge in a subconsciousness of a pub of Western denomination. But just as I expected Lebanon's nightlife has the same power of welcoming with an open embrace as the old aunties, uncles, relatives, friends living in Beirut. Especially when it comes to Gemmayzeh, a little street in the historical center of Beirut with at least two-centuries-old buildings astonishingly preserved (some well, some not well),. Gemmayzeh is Beirut's answer to bar hopping. It's taken to a VIP level if compared to an "average pub". They're clean, expensive, have valet parking services, waiters snatch the unnecessary items from the tables faster than one can utter shukran (which is why i guess no one says shukran as much as one had to say "thank you" or "merci" to comparably very lazy waiters in the "other" pubs), the interiors are outstandingly decorated, everyone is beautiful, everything is beautiful, even the music is beautiful, well the acoustics are beautiful because it's absolutely possible to both enjoy the music AND conversations with friends without the loss of voice cords or hearing... And, there is the nargile... It's funny how a cigarette smoke hater can absolutely not mind the nargile smoke your friend just covered you with... It's as dangerous as second hand smoking but there's something delicious about this death-by-a-friend-ly-nargile... And at this point I can proudly say that I overcame my fear of smoke by

"It's not about the nargile, it's what nargile...."

Little by little i discovered that when you place a nargile anywhere, that place ultimately becomes a pub... Here, you can pose and have about 10 minutes to daydream about this concept... Start from a fancy restaurant, go through a techno dance club, neighborhood cafe, pizza place, garden, home... Nargile is the ultimate shrink of Eastern denomination. It makes people talk, even when they don't... It make s a woman truly look mysterious and victorious, everlastingly beautiful, even if she's smoking her long list of problems away -

- lack of electricity, water and other essncials,

- kids problems,

- friends problems,

- relationship problems,

- war and peace,

-future and past...

Nargile is the one utility that can have one think locally and act globally. It's a silent secret weapon of mass instruction, it's the rosary beads that can bring together people of various social/religious/gender/political groups together at one table and make them calm at each other's presence...

Last month I read that Hamas was about to ban women from smoking nargile in public spaces because it was un-feminine... Such a big misconception. Unhealthy - yes, unfeminine - no. It is an escape, an exit strategy for a woman who's been running like a hamster in a wheel for the whole day... Wherever you go in the evening Beirut, women beautiful, women well dressed, women speaking softly, women with smiles and/or sadness, women young and old, women dressed in burqa or not, women with kids or not, with families or friends, but women always with nargile, the sounds of it filling up the air adding to the symphony of a Middle Eastern evening. It's the most important tool of cross-cultural or inter-cultural or intra-cultural communication or whatever else "experts of Western denomination" would have the nargile pheomenon classified...

A classification of an Eastern denomination would sound something like this: when banning smoking, one should separate the concepts of smoking and smoke... banning smoking as in smoking cigarettes dumped onto the developing and/or underdeveloped world is a very good, very necessary idea and campaign... Banning smoke not so easy... There's a lot of emotions invested into a nargile, every time someone blows a smoke away from nargile in the Middle East, a prayer for peace in direct or indirect manner is released onto the universe. the smoke for such a prayer is a necessary commodity to living and not merely surviving. Thus, in this case of cigarettes vs. nargile, nargile serves a purpose of a global necessity. To further support this point, one can find both cigarettes and nargile in Middle East's pubs, but one can never find nargile in Europe's pub who're suffering losses because of the ban on smoking. There ARE such things as Nargile Bars in Europe, though. The disciplinary aim of such a place is to go, sit on red cushions stuffed with sponges of suspicious quality, enter a realm of smoke acoustically irrelevant to the state of mind one has at the moment of entry, there are no cooked, uncooked, undercooked delights offered as garnishes... In short, the nargile is decreased from its notrious standard onto a lowly cigarette level... A better solution would be offering nargiles at Cuban cigar lounges, the sole places where one can smoke in Europe these days... And THAT's when it hit me that Che Guevara had somehow become the symbol of unity of cigar (without "ette"s) of Western denomination and nargile of Eastern denomination... They're both about peace that come at high cost.