ARMENIAN REPORTER
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June 16, 2007 — From the Arts & Culture section
To see the printed version of the newspaper, complete with photographs and
additional content, visit and download the pdf files. It’s
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Briefly
1. "Armenians in the Contemporary World," a refreshing perspective
2. Margaret Ajemian Ahnert continues book tour
3. Summer jazz at the Cascade
4. Florida Holocaust Museum exhibits Torosyan installation
5. Books: Move over Karl
* The must-read novel of the summer capitalizes on finance, love, and humor
* "Das Kapital," Berberian’s new novel, voyages from Wall Street to
Marseille and Corsica
* Viken Berberian’s The Cyclist (Book review by Paul Chaderjian, 2002)
6. Art: Who is the victim?
* That’s the question at the Venice Biennale’s Armenian pavilion
*On Sonia Balassanian’s "Who Is the Victim?" (by Nina Möntmann, Curator;
trans. Christopher Jenkin-Jones)
* A conscript and a widow speak out
7. Art: With a passionate "French Kiss," Stephen Tashjian brings Marie
Antoinette to life in Paris (by Raphy Sarkissian)
* But is she Apollonian and Dionysian?
8. Film: Four apricots, one Golden Apricot film festival (by Betty
Panossian-Ter Sargssian)
9. Stage: What becomes of the broken-hearted? (reviewed by Aram
Kouyoumdjian)
10. Playwright Alexander Dinelaris evokes 1915 in "Red Dog Howls" (by Susan
Markarian)
11. Stories of Armenian cinema unveiled: Otar Khagher
12. Essay: My lamajoon lady (by Armen D. Bacon)
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Briefly
1. "Armenians in the Contemporary World," a refreshing perspective
Through a new book titled, "Portraits of Hope: Armenians in the Contemporary
World," editor Huberta Von Voss introduces Armenians through 50 biographical
sketches of intellectuals, artists, and journalists. Among those
contributing or being chronicled are genocide scholars Vahakn Dadrian and
Taner Akçam, actress and writer Nouritza Matossian, writer Nancy Kricorian,
the late Hrant Dink, His Holiness Karekin II , His Holiness Aram I,
filmmakers Atom Egoyan and Artavazd Peleschjan, and many others. The book’s
preface says what Von Voss set out to do was to "produce a complicated
kaleidoscope of a divided but lively people that is trying, once again, to
rediscover its ethnic coherence."
connect:
w ww.amazon.com
2. Margaret Ajemian Ahnert continues book tour
The author of "The Knock at the Door" will read and sign copies of her
memoir in Glendale, Fresno, and Berkeley in late June. Ahnert’s New York
City appearance was disrupted by Turkish nationalists who shouted and passed
out leaflets negating the historic facts of the Armenian Genocide. Ahnert’s
memoir chronicles her mother’s survival story and immigration to the United
States. The writer’s Southern California appearances will begin at the
Barnes & Noble store in Glendale, on Saturday, June 23, at 2 P.M. A second
appearance is scheduled on Thursday, June 28, at 7 P.M. at Borders in
Fresno. Ahnert will also appear in Berkeley at Cody’s Books on Saturday,
June 30, at 7 P.M.
connect:
3. Summer jazz at the Cascade
The second of the summer 2007 open-air concerts organized by the Cafesjian
Museum Foundation was scheduled for June 15. Hundreds of music lovers and
passersby were to gather on the stone steps above the stage at the Cascade,
where the jazz evening featured the Bobby Sanabria Quartet, Vahagn
Hayrapetyan & Katuner, Art Voices, Time Report, and the Zoo.
The event was co-sponsored by the U.S. Embassy in Armenia.
4. Florida Holocaust Museum exhibits Torosyan installation
Apo Torosyan, a grandson of Armenian Genocide survivors, is presenting his
work called "The Bread Series" or the "Immigration Installation" at the
Florida Holocaust Museum in St. Petersburg. The exhibit includes paintings
made with bread, mounds of earth, newspaper, sound, and video. Torosyan’s
work focuses on oppression and dislocation. The artist hopes his work will
educate the public about the danger of ignoring the lessons of history.
Torosyan’s installation opened Tuesday and will be on display through
Saturday, September 16. The Florida Holocaust Museum is located at 55 5th
Street South in St. Petersburg.
connect:
flholocaustmuseum.org
(727) 820-0100
**************************************** ***********************************
5. Books: Move over Karl
* The must-read novel of the summer capitalizes on finance, love, and humor
* "Das Kapital," Berberian’s new novel, voyages from Wall Street to
Marseille and Corsica
The much-awaited and long-anticipated second novel from literary whiz Viken
Berberian is now out in bookstores. "Das Kapital" comes on the heels of
Berberian’s first novel, "The Cyclist," which offered readers an insightful,
reflective, and hilarious exploration of the mind of a would-be terrorist.
With his new book, Berberian delves into the world of finance — a field
with which Berberian has first-hand familiarity. Taking a few cues from real
life and his travels, Beberian creates two characters, one from Wall Street
and another from Corsica, both involved with the same woman.
The "Armenian Reporter" asked Berberian about his humorous new book that
plunges love into the world of making money.
PC: Viken, you worked in finance and even moved across the Atlantic a few
times while writing "Das Kapital." Walk us through the process of how this
novel was conceived, where the character came from, and why you wrote on two
different continents.
VB: There are many strange people who inhabit the world of finance. In the
New York office where I worked, there was a very smart and very strange
person. It is always more fun of course to be an eccentric if you have lots
of money. But what was interesting about this person is how he liked to make
money.
Unlike most people, he was gifted with a rare counter-intuitive mind. Most
investors make money by betting that the market will go up. That’s something
very intuitive, as the market tends to go up. Not him. He preferred to bet
against the consensus. He enjoyed making money when stock prices dropped. He
was a contrarian with an uncanny sense of timing. When the market tanked he
was like a kid in a candy store. He was always worried, looking for the next
disaster. I always thought of him as a happy pessimist, and my character,
Wayne, shares a number of his traits. Wayne loves the downside, if only he
stopped there.
As for the choice of place, Marseille is perhaps the most un-French city
in France. It is the second biggest in the country, but also one of the
poorest. My decision to write in Marseille had a lot to do with an
appreciation for the periphery as opposed to the core where people go to
find corporate work. At the time I just wanted to write and I did not want
to do what most expat writers do when they move to France, which is to move
to Paris: the bright lights, big city syndrome. I wanted to avoid the noise
of the metropolis and the pressure of being another expat working on a book
in the most beautiful city in the world. There are so many writers doing
that in Paris, and they end up spending their money at Les Deux Magots
sipping cafe, going to poetry readings, and doing Bikram yoga. I take my
English Breakfast at home, thank you.
And Corsica, too, has a very important place in the book. One of my
favorite writers, Sebald, was writing a novel situated in Corsica before he
died. Some of those incomplete and erudite essays are in an unusual book
called "Campo Santo," which I read after completing my draft.
PC: What did you want your audience to think about or examine in their
personal literature after reading the story you present? What were the
themes that you wanted to explore?
VB: On one level, the book is a parody of ideologies and the people who
inhabit them. A reviewer in BookForum described it that way. An editor
friend said that the book reads like a long love letter, while someone else
suggested that it is about beginnings and ends. I think it may be all of
those things and also about the importance of preparing for the improbable,
whether that improbable is an intangible like a new love, a black swan
flying in the sky, or something entirely horrific like the suicide attacks
on the World Trade Center. One of the problems with improbable events of
course is how does one prepare for the unexpected? So in a sense, the book
is also a critique of determinism and the difficulties of coping with
uncertainty in the modern age.
Could it be that the themes are secondary to my need to document things
and my interest in languages? The book is layered with the nomenclature of
finance and I wanted to capture that. I kept a diary at the hedge fund where
I worked and wrote in it every night before going to sleep. Finance people
talk in a kind of coded incantation. It makes the whole business of
investing seem like it is a science and somehow more credible. Of course,
investing is more art than science. But there are other vocabularies in the
book, among them, French rap, tech talk, marketing blurbs, Arabic, and the
thick bouillabaisse of Marseille’s palaver.
PC: How are your second novel and first novel similar and/or different
from one another?
VB: This one is obviously less self-conscious than "The Cyclist." Lebanon
was a country I was born in and to which I have an intuitive connection. I
had to learn Marseille and French from the outside. I lived there for three
years and it was important for me to experience the place not as passing
tourist or journalist but with a certain permanency. It was the only way for
me to write in an honest way, which is the most important thing in writing.
PC: Let’s revisit "The Cyclist," which was published in 2002, right after
the September 11 attacks. It caught people’s attention and was translated
into Dutch, Hebrew, and Italian. How did your personal history as a Lebanese
native and a New Yorker show itself in the story of "The Cyclist"? Did you
draw upon personal recollections to write about the psychology of the
would-be terrorist.
VB: I use the word terrorist only once or twice in "The Cyclist." We left
Beirut when I was nine. I never lived the civil war like other members of my
family or relatives, with the exception of two summer visits to Beirut. My
most meaningful connection to political violence is obviously the most
personal, and that is my father’s death in 1986, but even that experience I
prefer to describe as an act of political violence or sheer stupidity and so
I refrain from using the word terrorist. It is a question of precision, not
ideology.
Today, the use of the word "terrorism" is especially arbitrary and
manifestly meaningless, which could be why "The Cyclist" struck a chord with
readers. It came out at a time when people were looking for "objective"
definitions of terrorism. Yet "The Cyclist" does not give neat, objective
answers. If anything, it raises lots of questions. The nameless character is
a transnational; his identity is a composite of many cultures and religions.
There is a certain universality and ambiguity about his nature; he is
portrayed as human and he represents a perspective that is not
institutional.
This is not say that I do not have specific views about political
violence. When it assumes the dimensions of a spectacle, political violence
becomes self-referential, and that is when it begins to lose touch with its
own moral underpinnings and political objectives; that is when civilians die
and violence is celebrated as spectacle and it turns onto itself, detached
from the political, economic, and social goals it wants to achieve.
PC: You traveled to Armenia during the independence movement and wrote for
"AIM" ("Armenian International Magazine"). Tell us about that experience and
what stands out from the stories you wrote some 15 years ago.
VB: What stands out the most is the time I spent in the snow near the
Nayirit factory, where the environmentalists had pitched their tents,
demanding the closure of the plant which was a major source of pollution in
the city. Everyone knew that Nayirit was a giant toxic stew, but it was also
an important source of revenue and employment for Armenia. It was one of a
handful of plants in the world, something like nine, including DuPont, that
produced neoprene.
No one knew during that very cold winter whether the legislators would
adhere to the calls of the greens to shut down the complex. I was out of
journalism school and writing a story for AIM, and I remember being very
sick one day inside my room at the Hotel Hrazdan. On one of those days, I
wrote in my diary how much I wanted to write a book one day. I was 23 years
old then, sick, heartbroken, and alone in Yerevan, thinking that I wanted to
return to the people close to my heart in Los Angeles.
PC: Are there any novels ahead that may use your ethnic identity or
historic homeland as a setting, as you have used Lebanon as a venue for "The
Cyclist"?
VB: It’s bad luck to talk about unwritten books. Stay tuned, and in the
meantime, look out for one of my short stories called "the Consolidated
Republic of Nowhere."
PC: Where are you living now, and what are you doing? Do you continue to
work in Finance?
VB: I live in Paris, mostly but not entirely for work, which is at a
financial consulting company. There are many distractions in the city. There
is a bakery in my neighborhood, for example, called Des Idées et du Pain.
The head baker’s first name is Jean-Paul, and he has a philosophical
approach to baking. Hearing him, you would say that he has published more
books than baguettes. That’s Paris for you. Everyone has an opinion on
everything, especially cooking and philosophy. It’s sort of like a poorer
but more egalitarian version of New York and without the same level of
energy, a celebration of the past. You get the impression that nothing
changes here in an ontological, existential sort of way. That is what my
baker told me this morning. Ouff, I said to him, just give me my pain au
chocolat, I need to jump into the metro and get to work.
PC: Thank You.
* * *
* Viken Berberian’s North American Book Tour
-New York
Monday, June 18 @ 7 PM
Barnes & Noble, Lincoln Triangle
1972 Broadway at 66th St.
-Boston
Wednesday, June 20 @ 7 PM
Harvard COOP, Harvard Square
1400 Massachusetts Ave.
-Washington DC
Thursday, June 21 @ 7 PM
Olsson’s, Dupont Circle
1307 19th St. NW.
-Los Angeles
Tuesday, June 26 @ 7 PM
BookSoup, West Hollywood
8818 Sunset Blvd.
-San Francisco
Wednesday, June 27 @ 7 PM
City Lights
261 Columbus Ave. at Broadway
-San Mateo
Saturday, June 30 @ 2 PM
M is for Mystery
86 E. Third Ave.
"Das Kapital" is available in bookstores nationwide and also at
* Viken Berberian’s "The Cyclist"
Book review by Paul Chaderjian (2002)
Viken Berberian’s "The Cyclist" takes readers to places they’ve never been
in fiction and in literature, while entertaining and challenging their
intellect and emotions. Berberian offers the reader insight into a
geographically and intellectually foreign world, which is now part of our
post-9-11 reality. Berberian does this while questioning and challenging us
to philosophically examine what it is to be human, live in a divided
community, and what we want of our collective global reality.
Berberian’s story begins with a simple question many have asked and
wondered: what happens to those who live in a continuous state of trauma in
embattled communities and war-torn countries? Berberian asks, how does one
cope with life in a divided society, where neighbors are now enemies, where
populations are victims of terrorism, where people live with the threat of
terrorist attacks?
His answer is a lyrical and creative glimpse into the world of people who
choose to resort to violence in reaction to being victims of violence.
Berberian shows us one character and how he chooses to react to the lives
destroyed around him. "The Cyclist" tells us the story of someone we would
consider an antihero, and what he decides to do in his effort to perhaps
bring others peace and offer others a chance at life.
With "The Cyclist," Viken Berberian offers an entertaining, cynical, and
human character. The cyclist is from a war-torn Lebanese village, a victim
of the isolation caused by civil war. Yet his drive to be human is in
conflict with his hope for peace and normalcy in the future. The
once-cherubic gastronome cyclist’s decision to turn away from a life of
academia and the arts, offered by his parents, takes him into the ranks of
the "Academy." With the so-called attorneys of the Academy, he plots to call
attention to the victims of "globalization" and take a stand for the
thousands who never had a chance to live, be free, experience what life has
to offer, love, laugh, create, and be human.
"The Cyclist" is a brilliant book because it offers a fresh, creative, and
literary perspective into worlds and places we’ve never been to as readers.
Berberian has written something much better than the offerings of the
mainstream pop writers of our day. He has captured the ambiguous and
ethereal chaos of war, of violence, of the victims of wars, and the people
who are caught in the politics of globalization; and he does it with
brilliance, humor, and insight while capturing the simplicities of what it
is to be human in a world of chaos.
At its core, "The Cyclist" is a great and fresh story, a never-been-told
character with a new perspective of the world in which we live, where plots
like "The Cyclist"’s are now household and workplace dialogue and headlines
on CNN and MSNBC and pages of the "Los Angeles Times" or other dailies. We
talk about violent explosions, the burning of homes, snipers, and chaos in
faraway places over dinner, at Starbucks, and around the water cooler at the
office, but now Berberian challenges us to look and perhaps consider what
may cause and drive those who do what they do; and he does this while
allowing the reader to enjoy a great story and remain entertained.
Reading the thoughts of "The Cyclist," watching our narrator move through
space and time, interact with his friends and lover, family and strangers is
not only entertaining, but the language Berberian uses and the carefully
crafted sentences beg to be pondered and tasted to their fullest range of
thoughts and interpretation. Each morsel this brilliant writer gives us
warrants the reader to taste — rather than swallow whole the mainstream
mcbooks that are considered modern literature.
Readers will enjoy this book very much, savor its story, its use of the
English language, the cadence and flow of the sentences, scenes, and
dialogue, and will be intrigued as to how the story unfolds. "The Cyclist"
will pave the way for a new school of literature, a post 9-11 genre that
will further explore, examine, and teach about that which we dismiss as evil
without understanding the toll of our collective decisions, of
ill-distributed wealth, accumulation of resources at the expense of others,
of capitalism, globalization, and the exporting of culture as a commodity to
the global arena.
The Cyclist will teach future generations about the broken communities and
broken people who are the humans in the thousands history has forgotten
while our leaders win wars and shape our collective destinies and histories.
Berberian doesn’t justify or commend violence; he offers us insight into
what the violence of war produces. Berberian shows us one of a million
victims of violence, who unknowingly resorts to war, terror, and violence as
his means of contributing to or begging for change and a chance to be human,
live, love, eat, create, socialize, and enjoy our temporary and minute
existence on an incredibly beautiful and magical planet.
***************************************** **********************************
6. Art: Who is the victim?
* That’s the question at the Venice Biennale’s Armenian pavilion
YEREVAN — At the 52nd Biennale of Venice, which started on June 10 and runs
through November 21, Armenia is represented by Sonia Balassanian. Her
multiscreen spatial video installation, "Who is the Victim?" is curated by
Nina Möntmann.
Balassanian’s work taps into the "universalized misery and suffering of
war," says Möntmann, a regular contributor to Le Monde diplomatique.
Balassanian wants to get away from sympathy, which is a proclamation of
impotence, to emotions that lead to "critical protest against an economy of
global war."
The Armenian pavilion, which is under the auspices of Armenia’s Ministry
of Culture, is hosted by the Mechitarist Armenian Congregation and housed at
the famed Palazzo Zenobio.
Balassanian is founder and artistic director of the Armenian Center for
Contemporary Experimental Art in Yerevan, which has been organizing
Armenia’s presence at the Biennale for several years.
The images in Balassanian’s video installation all come from Armenia. But,
she says, "My language operates at a certain level of symbolic abstraction
in order to evoke universal human experiences from specific situations."
Möntmann sees in Balassanian’s work an evocation not only of war between
states but of a global war against the individual. She brings out
differences in women’s and men’s experiences of war, but also similarities.
"A woman overcome by grief for the husband she has lost in war . . . speaks
from an abstractly experiential space, for the destination her husband
failed to return from is unknown to her except via the media," Möntmann
says. "But the soldier’s direct experience is no less intangible than the
woman’s ideas of war. . . . Both figures have been broken by the futility of
death through war – the soldier succumbs to blank apathy, the woman to
despair."
Balassanian lives and works in New York and Yerevan. Her work has been
exhibited twice at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and in numerous
other venues in the United States, Europe, and Iran. She is a published
poet.
Since 1992, she has been involved in helping advance fine arts in Armenia
and presenting Armenian contemporary art in the international arena. In
1994, she founded ACCEA, which has become a vibrant center where Armenian
artists search for new means of expression, conduct experiments in
contemporary art, and cross for new frontiers.
* * *
* On Sonia Balassanian’s "Who Is the Victim?"
by Nina Möntmann, Curator
trans. Christopher Jenkin-Jones
The media confront us daily with an excess of brutal war imagery. Yet the
information content that these media images convey concerning specific
conflicts is thin. In particular since war has ceased to refer exclusively
to war between nations, but involves more complex structures and
dislocations, such images present an unchanging picture of misery as a
universal constant of global crisis. New conflicts, no less than protracted
or abiding ones, can no longer be viewed in isolation, but are components of
a global, fear-fueling apparatus of war.
The artist Sonia Balassanian’s video images tap into this universalized
misery and suffering. A projection of her multipart video work "Who Is the
Victim?" for the Pavilion of the Republic of Armenia at the 52nd Venice
Biennale shows a man in camouflage fatigues relating his war experiences in
a quiet, monotonous voice – the cold, the hunger, and brute violence. The text
derives from the diary of an Armenian soldier mobilized in the Karabakh
conflict. Not that this is conveyed in the text: the man talks of his
personal experiences and of the traumata induced by war. At the same time a
parallel video sets up a "dialogue": it shows a woman overcome by grief for
the husband she has lost in war. She speaks from an abstractly experiential
space, for the destination her husband failed to return from is unknown to
her except via the media. But the soldier’s direct experience is no less
intangible than the woman’s ideas of war based on media reports and memories
of her husband. Both figures have been broken by the futility of death
through war – the soldier succumbs to blank apathy, the woman to despair.
Gender-specific differences in dealing with war are also brought out: while
the woman is left alone with her grief, the soldier is left with a shattered
psyche. The slightly unsharp black-and-white images call to mind newspaper
photos and lend the subjective nature of the utterances a semblance of media
objectivity.
Wars and crisis areas are a constant feature of Balassanian’s biography.
Of Armenian extraction, she grew up in Iran and now lives in New York and
Yerevan. Concrete political events such as the fall of the Shah in Iran in
her collages "Hostages" (1980) figured in her earlier works. Balassanian’s
concern in her more recent video works are the ramifications of a general
war (albeit never referred to as such) being waged against the individual.
The images of places and landscapes in the second room of "Who Is the
Victim?" can be read as the soldier’s and the woman’s memories. Memory
assumes a central role in the lives of people who experience war and
henceforth shift between two extremes, the collective necessity to remember
and the individual desire to forget. Alongside "good" memories of lakes and
mountains that are vaguely reminiscent of impressionist paintings, or of a
horse on a beach, the videos show "bad", fear-inducing places or occurrences
such as a tunnel or a storm. The images were all shot in Armenia, and yet
they too could be anywhere, having more the nature of generic images of
positively or negatively connoted sites of memory.
For those who have experienced war or live in fear of one, or who live
with memories of a war they actually took part in and survived, the question
"who is the victim" is never far from the surface in depictions of war’s
unbelievable cruelty. But what is involved when a viewer of war images takes
an interest in or empathizes with human suffering in far-off conflict zones?
Not only those killed by war and their relatives are the victims, but all
whom the fear of war afflicts. Similarly, every viewer today, no matter
where, experiences victimhood in the face of the part real, part
propaganda-induced fear of the proliferating warfare represented by
terrorist attacks. But sympathy puts us in a position where we can passively
shirk responsibility and ignore our own role as accessories. In the words of
Susan Sontag: "So far as we feel sympathy, we feel we are not accomplices to
what caused the suffering. Our sympathy proclaims our innocence as well as
our impotence. To that extent, it can be (for all our good intentions) an
impertinent – if not an inappropriate – response."1 In overcoming sympathy, a
potential for action is released: "Compassion is an unstable emotion. It
needs to be translated into action, or it withers."2 Like sympathy, the
responsibility to resist is not just a matter for the official activities of
politicized groups: it is a potential present in everyone’s day-to-day life.
The question as to how art – as producer of knowledge, as a form of activism
or enlightenment – can tackle the subject of war is answered by Balassanian’s
multipart video with just this notion of sympathy and the necessity of its
transcendence arising from insight into the fact that the universalized
suffering in question is the outcome of a global strategy of war. "Everyone
is asleep, crisis is coming" is how the soldier describes the current
lethargy vis-à-vis this ominous situation, thus offering a potential lead-in
to critical protest against an economy of global war.
1. Susan Sontag, "Regarding the Pain of Others" (New York: Farrar, Straus
and Giroux, 2003) p. 131.
2. Ibid.
* * *
* A conscript and a widow speak out
Pavilion of Republic of Armenia at 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007. Sonia
Balassanian’s Who is the Victim?
Excerpts from the diary of Ed Tadevosyan, a conscript/actor
July 16, 2004, 16:55
Asphalt ablaze… A dusty, torn soldier’s boot which has crossed scoreless
kilometers… The sun turns the crowd into a uniform sweaty mass. In the
wrinkles of clothes take shelter the flies, the only living creatures that
enjoy the sweat dropping from the helmets of thousands of dirty heads…
Asphalt ablaze… Sun burning… The crowd wants to eat… To reach
something reminiscent to food, one needs to cross through dust, blazing
asphalt, burning sun, torn soldier-boots, and heavy boxes. The crowd sweats
eating. They snatch food from one another. The crowd needs to rest. The
crowd has to rest… The crowd knows that after getting fed, again…
Asphalt ablaze… Sun burning… The crowd is on the verge of nervous
outburst…
June 29, 2004, 17:40-July 11, 01:12
Waiting… There is nothing worse than waiting… However strange the result
might be, it is more desirable than waiting… Everything is soaked with
waiting. Even the seconds hand of the clock runs at the speed of the hour
hand… Strangely, time turns into a staunch enemy. You wait, and silently
conform to the mockery of time, and its wicked jokes… And suddenly time
becomes the most malicious being, because your satisfaction depends only on
time…
Waiting… At any event there is something pleasant in waiting… There is
nothing worse than waiting… The last moment of waiting is the climax of
pleasure… But… There is nothing worse than waiting…
July 8, 2004, 2:20-July 11, 0:40
Insomnia The desire to accomplish at least… Everything? Freedom: everyone
will pay for it… Freedom: The most expensive commodity of all times…
Deep night… the knowledge that insomnia is a method of expressing freedom
makes it desirable… Insomnia… Fear of losing the freedom…
July 17, 2004, 04:30-04:15
Everyone is asleep … It is possible that only a few are sleeping. The rest
are waiting… Crisis is anticipated… How predictable are the war-lords?
The group of people who rules the other has only one purpose: to teach their
subjects how to play war better… Therefore, they need to interrupt the
youth’s dream. For some, the dream is the only way of seeing their mothers.
They say those who are capable of waking up the sleeping are capable of any
malicious act…
4:20 Everyone is asleep … Someone is waiting for the start of "the
play". He has one important mission: He will scream "crisis"… It is a
shame that all this did not start before his shift… A couple of minutes
more, and thousands of youth would start playing war, suspending their
dreams. Dawn. Everyone is asleep. Crisis is coming…
Mamik: (Widow of A Fallen Freedom-Fighter)
— My name is Mamik.
— I was born in Javakhk.
— I fell in love with my husband, Galoust.
— We were married when I was 17 years old.
— I named my first son David.
— My husband joined the army, as soon as war began.
— When I had my second son I named him Artsroun.
— My husband kept visiting us but he could only spend very little time
with us.
— He was a fearless freedom fighter.
— During that period 12 young men from our village disappeared -we still
don’t know what happened to them. Some of the villagers think that they
might have been abducted by the enemy.
— When I was pregnant with my third child I asked my husband to stay
until I gave birth.
— He said he couldn’t leave his comrades alone at the battlefield.
— Before he left he asked me to name the child Hripsime if it is a girl,
after his mother or Galoust if a boy.
— I had my third son ten days later and two hours after he was born, they
brought my husband’s body home.
— I named my son Galoust after my husband.
**************************************** ***********************************
7. Art: With a passionate "French Kiss," Stephen Tashjian brings Marie
Antoinette to life in Paris
* But is she Apollonian and Dionysian?
By Raphy Sarkissian
PARIS — "French Kiss" is the title of a notable current exhibition that
opened on May 24 at Paris’ JGM Galerie, located within a block from the
Centre Georges Pompidou.
Curated by Rob Wynne, an accomplished American artist based in New York,
"French Kiss" presents an astute survey of contemporary and 20th-century
Franco-American aesthetic interactions through the platform of its poetic
theme. The cross-cultural, cross-media tenets of this salon-style cluster of
works includes pieces by numerous legendary 20th-century artists. The
setting of the gallery is brought to its height through a soundtrack of
French opera arias, vocalized by soprano June Anderson.
Among works by 36 artists on display is an irresistible and seemingly
populist floral still-life painting by Stephen Tashjian, whose very pen name
Tabboo! (yes, always misspelled with a double "b," and always terminating
with that audacious exclamation mark) is in and of itself an archetypal
analogue to the title of the exhibition. Here the French kiss is rendered
metaphorical, as it has been through various other works.
On view are a photograph of Henry Miller by Man Ray, a print by Joan
Mitchell, a botanical drawing by Ellsworth Kelly (after Matisse), "Cadeau
after Man Ray" of Sherrie Levine, a Deborah Kass portrait of Gertrude Stein
(after Warhol), and Sophie Matisse’s reinterpretation of Man Ray’s surreal
"Observatory Time — The Lovers," this time without the lips. A large 1972
pencil drawing of Yves St. Laurent by Andy Warhol points directly to
fashion, as a daring Patrick Kelly "Eiffel Tower Dress" from the 1980s
heightens the theme of couture. Elisabeth Kley’s mischievously comical
portrait of Chanel conveys a sense of heartbreak rather than flippancy.
Lawrence Weiner and Jack Pierson cunningly utilize the text on its own
through their distinct methods, while cinema is represented by Jim McBride’s
re-make of "Breathless" (1983). Rachel Feinstein’s faux-baroque portrait of
faded aristocracy stands out fittingly within the context of French cultural
history. The photographs by Ralph Gibson, Nan Goldin, Laurie Simmons,
Alexander Ruas, Marina Karella, Irving Penn, Richard Avedon, and Seton Smith
point to diverse aspects of Franco-American material culture and imagery.
In addition, a shelf of books by an array of such American authors as
Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Julia Child, and James Baldwin not
only bolt inter-cultural parameters, but collapse and expand the boundaries
of forms and domains of representation. Painting, sculpture, photography,
text, literature, music, fashion, film, and more become transformed into
poetic, conceptual, and tongue-in-cheek "French kisses" among themselves.
Tashjian’s "Marie Antoinette" is rivaled first by the hot neon lips of
Sturtevant — followed one after another by each work aptly selected by the
curator. Whether referring directly to lips and kisses, or abstractly to
lines and colors, sculptures, objects, or photographs of geometric shapes,
the underlying precept of the exhibition remains conditioned by dialectical
relations: metaphor is regularly rendered metonymic, and vice versa. In this
sense, the exhibition seems to proclaim the following: that the artwork on
display, regardless of its theme, is a "French kiss" between a medium and
its message, of an artwork and its context. When its content contains a
literal reference to a kiss, its meaning is further multiplied or perhaps
short-circuited, interlocking and expanding the metaphoric and metonymic,
the poetic and literal, the literary and actual, the conceptual and
corporal.
The visual prowess of Tashjian’s painting is paradoxically based on its
formal eclecticism: not only because of its coupling of text and image of
distinct stylistic manners, but the diversity of its technical executions of
these.
The bluish grey pitcher nested in its basin holds over a dozen Manetian
roses that amplify a coloristic drama. Luscious lavender, pink, and white
brushstrokes are applied so fluidly that they often replace the legibility
and decorative values of petals by an "Ab Ex" ecstasy. Yet Tashjian also
manages to conjure through his gestural petals the sense that the
spontaneity of the brushstroke is conditioned by sensory parameters that
simultaneously banter with the means and ends of acrylic painting, of
originality, of history, of imitation, of doubt, of accident, of
calculation, and so many of their in-betweens.
The dark green leaves set themselves apart from the brushily indistinct
welts of the rose petals, while the surfaces of the pitcher and basin are
playgrounds of acrobatic, serpentine lines in browns and grays, conjuring
the painter’s palette in tandem with a poised, fragile three-dimensional
sensation. Tashjian’s objects continue to evaporate even after his paint has
dried. His ersatz is a sum of Dionysian glitters and Apollonian rationality
of modernist flatness that envelopes and transpires behind the roses.
Referring to Sophia Coppola’s 2006 film Marie Antoinette, Tashjian
comments: "That’s what inspired my painting! After seeing the movie with its
poetic sense of the Queen of France, capturing the ‘feel’ of her rather than
all the historical accuracies…. My painting was more about capturing the
essence, hence the light pink roses and the white porcelain water pitcher
that she may have placed near her bed to wash her face…. It was months
later that Rob Wynne asked me to paint a portrait of Marie Antoinette for
the show he was curating, and I informed him that I already had one! Not
exactly a ‘portrait,’ but a portrait nonetheless=85 I loved the movie. I
bought the soundtrack CD with all of its new romantic punk songs, though I
think the movie was basically trashed by the public and the French for not
being historically accurate; so much for artistic license."
Within the context of this exhibition, Stephen Tashjian’s "Marie
Antoinette" attests to the viewer that no matter what the subject or manner
of a painting might be, the hand of the painter and the brush handle must
"French kiss," the bristles of the brush and the paint must consequently
French kiss, as in turn paint and the weave of the linen French kiss —
which may eventually French kiss the viewer’s eye.
As to what extent those French kisses are Apollonian (aesthetic, rational)
or Dionysian (instinctual, emotional) remains up to the discretion of a
given artist, and a given spectator, at a given moment.
"French Kiss" runs through June 30 at JGM Galerie, 79 Rue du Temple, in
Paris. The gallery website is
* * *
Raphy Sarkissian is an artist and curator. He teaches at the School of
Visual Arts in New York City.
******************************************* ********************************
8. Film: Four apricots, one Golden Apricot film festival
by Betty Panossian-Ter Sargssian
YEREVAN — It began as a labor of love, but in its fourth consecutive year,
the Golden Apricot International Film Festival here is taking baby but
steady steps toward becoming a highly professional and prestigious film
festival.
Initially a gathering of Armenian and foreign filmmakers,
cinematographers, and the audience, Golden Apricot since 2004 has ripened to
become a full programmed film festival and an attraction not only to
Armenian and regional filmmakers, but also to European and American
filmmakers, film critics, producers, and media.
During the short time it has been around, Golden Apricot has managed to
secure a place for itself in the professional world of cinema as a meeting
place of the art house cinema, its authors, and the public. In February of
this year, the festival gained strength by being adopted as a sister
festival by two other internationally acclaimed film festivals, the
Rotterdam International Film Festival (the Netherlands), and the Pussan
(South Korea) International Film Festival.
The fourth annual meeting of Golden Apricot with its public will last from
July 9 to 14.
The theme of the festival, same as last year’s Crossroad of Cultures and
Civilization, this year too hopes to engage the participants in a serious
conversation about cultural exchange through the seventh art, an exciting
opportunity for film people to share their stories coming from all corners
of the world with each other and the public.
* An increasingly sweet attraction
This year 53 countries have applied to participate in the festival,
according to the organizers. "But after the initial selection, a final
number of 35-40 countries may come to Golden Apricot to compete for its
prizes," said Mikael Stamboltsian, the festival program director.
This year there was an increase in the number of applications, especially
in feature films. "This year we have 60 feature films presented for our
selection, something which has never happened during the three previous
years," said Stamboltsian.
With each passing year, Golden Apricot tries to establish itself as a more
prestigious festival, where not just any film is granted an entry into its
official program. "We are directed by a sole guidance: Higher aesthetic
values with each coming year," said Stamboltsian.
The festival includes two main categories: International competition and
an Armenian Panorama National Competition. In addition to these two main
categories, various retrospective sessions and Yerevan premieres of the best
recent art house films will complete the festival program.
Full-length feature films and documentaries of various lengths produced
between July 2005 and July 2007, as well as features, animations, and
documentary films produced during the same period by filmmakers from Armenia
and those of Armenian descent may be presented to the festival program
selecting committee.
Three groups of juries, each evaluating feature, documentary, or Armenian
Panorama films in competition will decide the winners of Golden and Silver
Apricots in each category.
Golden Apricot is becoming a sweet attraction for cinema people from
around the world. Last year’s guests included such prominent figures such as
Marco Beloccio from Italy, Mohsen Makhmalbaf from Iran, Godfrey Reggio from
the usa. Then there’s Atom Egoyan, who, was president of the festival and
will be again this year.
There may be some changes in the guest list, but the festival organizers
said that among the guests will be prize-winning filmmakers fresh from the
Cannes Film Festival, world-famous actors, last year’s prize winners, to
name a few.
News agencies like Euronews, and ARTE will this year return to the
festival with much more enthusiasm, after being impressed by last year’s
showing.
* Carnival for the festival
Last year the Third Golden Apricot was launched with a hip motorcycle show
touring the streets of Yerevan.
In fact, the first two days of the festival were much like a carnival,
where balloons, concerts, motorcycles and many other crowd attractions
filled the space in the Charles Aznavour square just across from Moscow
theater, the main venue for the festival.
Will the festival be a carnival this year? "We don’t know yet about the
motorcycles, but the festive mood will definitely be there, because this
year we have planned the opening ceremony to take place under the Yerevan
sky, in the Charles Aznavour Square," said filmmaker Haroutioun
Khachatourian, the founder-director of the festival.
This year the opening and closing ceremonies will be well-organized and
well-managed events, he promises. Four directors will make the ceremonies a
success, "because we found out that the Armenian public likes ceremonies and
concerts," says Haroutioun Khachatourian. "We thought that organizing a film
festival will bring the public to watch good-quality and art house films,
but the public is more interested in the ceremonial and concert events," he
complained.
Khachatourian explained that the festival organizers want a little bit of
a carnival mood around the square that will attract every kind of person to
the festival.
* No apricot. Charlie Chaplin instead.
In 2005 the poster for the festival featured a mouth-watering slice of toast
with a golden apricot jam spread, and the figure 2 drawn by someone’s
finger. The apricot had ripened into a jam in its second year. Last year,
three eyes with apricot irises watched passersby.
This year the festival posters are a little more intriguing. The apricot
is not there. "This year we have been more cinematic," explains
Khachatourian. He quips that the apricot crop was not all that abundant this
year.
The black upper body outline of the Charlie Chaplin fills the main space
of the poster, with four white feather little angel wings on its back.
"These are the wings of the fourth year of the festival, which will help us
fly high," explains Khachatrian.
The official logo of the festival is the cinema eye, with the film band
upper lid and the Armenian tricolor as the lower lid, and of course a plump
golden apricot as its iris.
* The Sky Lark flies to Armenia
The opening film will be Lark Farm by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. The
scriptwriter, the film producer, one of the lead actors of the film, and
lead actress Arsinée Khanjian will be present in the festival.
The filmmakers of the Lark Farm will be granted a presidential award in
the framework of the festival, as on June 18-19 one of them, Paolo Taviani,
will be in Yerevan.
One of the novelties of the fourth Golden Apricot is the New Armenian
cinema. It is a supplementary program especially for the guests of the
festival, who will have the opportunity to get acquainted with the new works
of the Armenian cinema. It will include works by Armenian filmmakers who
have preferred to screen their films in other international film festivals
and some films are among those that are not included in the Armenian
Panorama. "Most of our guests come to Armenia to get acquainted with the
Armenian cinema within the circles of this festival," says Soussanna
Haroutiounian, the art director of the festival.
Armenian cinema will have a major place in various programs of the
festival. In retrospectives, classical or Armenian panorama programs will
feature veteran and young filmmakers and their films.
Armenian cinema is on the way to being rejuvenated. There are many new
films with unique and excellent characteristics, as is the new documentary
by Vardan Hovhannissian A Story of People in War and Peace, "which may be
the best Armenian film I have seen during the last ten years," said
Haroutioun Khachatourian. The Tribecca film festival award winner will be
screened for the Armenian audience in this festival.
* Armenia-diaspora bonds
Armenian-diaspora filmmakers will be a presence from the very first days of
the festival. "One of the major goals of Golden Apricot is to unite all
Armenian filmmakers in Yerevan. To give the Armenian-diasporan filmmakers a
sense that their main audience is here, in Yerevan," says Stamboltsian.
The number of participants from the diaspora and the quality of the films
presented may vary from year to year, but "we try to adopt a strict
selective approach apart from everything. But telling from the contact
preserved after the festival is over we can tell that those people are
forming bonds with the festival and Armenia," said Stamboltsian.
"I think that with Golden Apricot the Armenian-diaspora filmmaker now has
an additional motive to create new works and present them to the Armenian
audience and through this festival, to the world as well," said Soussanna
Haroutiounian.
Within the past four years the festival has seen another outcome as well.
"The filmmakers who come to Armenia to screen their films in the Golden
Apricot, some of them return some day to shoot new films in Armenia. We
already have three examples of such outcomes and one day we may add a
special program to the festival and name it the children of Golden Apricot,"
said Khachatourian.
********************************** *****************************************
9. Stage: What becomes of the broken-hearted?
reviewed by Aram Kouyoumdjian
In keeping with the confessional tone of "Armenians in =85 the Broken Hearts
Club," I must admit that I approached this evening of personal narratives
about relationships with some anxiety. Even though I make a sincere effort
not to prejudge any performance I will be experiencing, the promise that I
would be privy to the secret pages of diaries awakened images of a horrific
"open mic," from which would emanate sentimental tales of woe, told by
readers who confused the setting with a therapist’s couch.
How wrong the Siroun Storytellers proved me! They navigated the minefield
of love with a brisk and breezy program on Sunday, June 3, at Next Stage
Digital in Studio City. Adrineh Gregorian, who curated the evening, was
obviously keen on both brevity and wit; her chosen stories seemed to say
that given time, heartbreak can be as funny as it is grievous.
The stories themselves — of uneven polish — were not really of the
literary type. In fact, the readings resembled spoken word performances,
seasoned with some improv. Even music was thrown into the mix, as Alex With
Sound performed "Out of Sadness" and "Girl in the Morning." The introduction
to the latter song, referencing unrequited love, perhaps articulated the
evening’s most pithy line: "Sometimes it’s the relationships you’re not in
that break your heart."
James Martin kicked off the evening with "Loser Troll," a poignant
rumination on unequal love — an imbalance through which the beloved
receives more love than he or she gives. Martin described two such
relationships — in one, he broke a heart; in another, his own heart was
broken — reflecting on them with humor, even as he grappled with the
question of what happens to the self that gets lost upon being coupled.
Helen Kalognomos provided a primer for weeding out Mr. Wrong in "Conscious
Yes, Subconscious No." Her tone perfectly droll, Kalognomos recounted wading
through treacherous waters filled with the likes of Mr. Obsessive and Mr.
Zen in her search for Mr. Right. As she rebuffed such unsuitable suitors,
Kalognomos had to consider who was the true "victim" of the encounter — in
being left heartbroken.
In "It’s Not You, It’s Me," Yeghia (Yogi) Tchakmakian used the story of a
hellish road trip with a former girlfriend to list his top reasons for an
inevitable break-up. Number one? "Don’t slap me, ever." Tchakmakian’s
frequent resort to pop psychology was amusing — if not altogether sound. He
was probably right in noting that a relationship is based on "trust,
companionship, sex, compromise =85 and also love"; in claiming that "if one is
missing, all are missing," not so much. Still, give the young man major
points for earnestness and purity of feeling. His parting line, "God is
cruel enough; love shouldn’t be," was as poetically resonant as playwright
Lanford Wilson’s observation (in "Burn This") that life isn’t opera; love
need not always be tragic.
Far from tragic, Karineh Gregorian’s "Too Cool for School," which explored
the dysfunctions of Armenian dating, had a happy ending. Yes, it flouted the
very theme of heartbreak, but surely that we can forgive.
No happy ending was in store for Lory Tatoulian, who strutted on stage to
the theme of "The Love Boat" but declared, "I have a blank page here because
I don’t have a love life." Tatoulian’s talents for comedic writing and
timing were on fully display in "Aaaiiieee Mami!" which opened with a
subversively funny bit about her childhood in Reedley (near Fresno) and the
disturbing catcalls she would get — while walking to school, no less —
from the town’s migrant workers. Yet, this "Lolita of Reedley" tale was
merely the prologue to an equally farcical saga of three adult relationships
that could best be described as a series of unfortunate events.
Aside from serving laughs to a capacity audience (that skewed young and
hip), the evening served as a benefit to Sose — a nongovernmental
organization in Armenia "dedicated to empowering and educating rural women
through health initiatives." It proved, still again, that laughter can be —
or buy — the best medicine.
* * *
Aram Kouyoumdjian is the winner of Elly Awards for both playwriting ("The
Farewells") and directing ("Three Hotels"). His latest work is "Velvet
Revolution."
****************** ************************************************** *******
10. Playwright Alexander Dinelaris evokes 1915 in "Red Dog Howls"
by Susan Markarian
In his latest play, "Red Dog Howls," dramatist Alexander Dinelaris tackles
the Armenian Genocide. As characters speak their lines, Mr. Dinelaris takes
the audience to the front lines of the Catastrophe that befell Armenians
almost a century ago. A masterful storyteller, Mr. Dinelaris slowly and
gently embraces the memory of a fateful day in 1915 that will course shivers
down the listener’s spine.
The play is about a thirty-something grandson who, after his father’s
death, meets his paternal grandmother for the first time. Bound by blood to
her grandson, but separated by silence and suppression, Grandma Rose shares
the essence of being Armenian with him. She introduces him to dolma and
choreg, and when she feels he’s ready, she tells him her haunting tale of
1915. There’s no room for "sterilized sympathy," a term used by Mr.
Dinelaris, when Rose breathes life into the words, "Armenian Genocide."
Matthew Rauch, Kathleen Chalfant, and Mia Barron will perform in a staged
reading of the play on June 25 in New York City.
Alexander Dinelaris developed his passion for playwriting from an early
age. His mother Maria noticed her young son’s love of reading and words and
nurtured it. He attended the theater program at Barry University and won the
prestigious Mac McKindree Scholarship for Theatre. His father spoke
beautiful Armenian. He also was a wordsmith with his charisma and sharp
sense of humor.
Mr. Dinelaris’s grandmother Vartouhi (Rose) played an important role in
young Alex’s life. A talented woman, she excelled in sculpture, dress
making, and Armenian cuisine. In Manhattan’s Washington Heights, her dolma
and choreg were legendary. Vartouhi sewed beautiful wedding gowns for many
an Armenian bride.
Mr. Dinelaris’s theatrical output has been astounding. He was nominated
for a Lucille Lortel Award (best musical) and two Drama Desk Awards (books
and lyrics) for his work on the Off-Broadway hit, "Zanna Don’t!" His new
play, "Still Life," is Broadway bound, as well as his play, "Folding the
Monster." Danny Aiello and Rosie O’Donnell are the stars slated to appear in
the latter. His other works include the critically acclaimed "The Chaos
Theories," which played at the 2004 New York Fringe Festival. He’s currently
working on a television pilot for Aiello, who describes Alex’s work as
"genius."
The title of the play, "Red Dog Howls," is taken from the poem, "Prayer"
by Siamanto, one of the Armenian elite rounded up to be executed in 1915. To
paraphrase a Langston Hughes poem, "What happens to a nightmare denied, does
it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" I suggest it sprouts new life, taking
on many forms, like the creative life force of playwright Alexander
Dinelaris.
**************************** ***********************************************
1 1. Stories of Armenian cinema unveiled: Otar Khagher
The next episode of "The Making of a Film" will bring to the public the
stories of another period drama produced by Hyefilm, "Otar khagher"
("Strange games," 1986, 78 min.)
The fortnightly program tells the stories behind the restored films that
are screened on Armenia TV. The documentary on "Otar khagher" stands out in
that the filmmaker himself, Nerses Hovhannisian, was available to be
interviewed.
The presence of the filmmaker helped the documentarians uncover the back
story, but the making of this episode was as challenging and tough as the
others have been.
"There isn’t much in the way of preserved archival materials for ‘Otar
khagher,’ and even on and off the set photos are not that abundant," says
the writer and host Anna Terjanian.
Set in the mid-1980s "Otar khagher" did not generate much buzz. The film
is about a young family that had the golden chance to go abroad to
participate in a prestigious training session. "In those years there was
already a big desire for a chance to cross out of the Soviet borders, and
the main character of this film echoed the mute desire of many," Terjanian
says.
The family, husband and wife, decide that they desperately need to grasp
this opportunity and become tangled in strange games of love and betrayal.
Both husband and wife have affairs with the spouses of high-ranking
officials who could have made their dream come true. "Strange themes and a
daring film for that period of time, but today we witness many examples of
such games in everyday life," says Anna, adding that one of the reasons that
at that time this film did not spawn much enthusiasm was that the themes of
betrayal and extramarital affairs, at least on the Armenian silver screen,
was not something accepted by the audience. But now, barely two decades
later, the viewer can tune for hours of love and family affairs on the
Armenian and Russian dubbings of Latin American soap operas.
However, "The Story of a Film" will try to emphasize everything that is
unique to this film.
Director of "Otar khagher" Nerses Hovhannisian is considered to be
specialized in making films about family and everyday life and affairs. Only
one of them, "Yerchangutian mekhanika" ("Mechanism for happiness," already
restored by Hyefilm, screened on Armenia TV, and featured in "The Making of
a Film," stands out among his many dramas.
The making of this episode revealed an interesting story to Anna. "After
we had started working on this episode, Perch Tourabian, one of our closest
friends living in the United States, told me that he himself had a walk-on
role in this film. He also said that he was initially asked to be the lead
character, but since he already had been planning his immigration to the
United States, the filmmakers thought that such behavior would have cast a
shadow on the whole film."
Another important aspect of this film the program highlights is that many
well-known actors and names of Armenian cinema agreed to have small, walk-on
appearances. "Through agreeing to perform small and secondary roles,
prominent figures such as Frounze Deuvletian and Armen Jigarkhanian
expressed their love and friendship to Nerses Hovhannisian," says Anna.
The original, unrestored version of "Otar khagher" was far from perfect
mainly because of the poor quality of the film. "Its colors had mostly faded
into green, but all has been mended in the newly restored version. It was a
pleasure watching the restored version," Anna says.
"I think that this film corresponds more to the current norms and the
audience will more easily accept it this time," she adds.
"The Making of a Film" broadcasts on Armenia TV on Monday, June 18. It is
repeated on other days. It will be followed by the screening of the restored
version of Otar Khagher.
**************************************** ***********************************
12. Essay: My lamajoon lady
by Armen D. Bacon
In the span of our lifetimes, people come and go. They enter and exit our
lives. We sometimes bump into them quite by accident and somehow, they
become valued and cherished friends. Go figure. I have often wondered if
these are accidental or chance meetings, or a result of fate, kismet, or the
design of destiny. For now, I am quite satisfied to think of them simply as
magical moments where lives intersect and connect. Who really cares how or
why we might find each other across a crowded room? Or in the instance I am
about to describe, in a tiny, almost anonymous bakery right off Ashlan
Avenue and Freeway 41 in Fresno. This story is about a special friend I have
found. I know her only as "My lamajoon lady."
She works tirelessly behind the counter and behind the one-way glass
window of my favorite lamajoon kitchen, The Bread Basket. She kneads the
dough, works the register, stocks the shelves, and waits on customers. She
bakes from dawn until dusk. "Harrd Vork," she once confessed to me under her
breath with her thick Armenian accent.
I imagine that we live worlds apart, even though we both reside in Fresno.
Each morning, as my alarm sounds, I have the luxury of sipping my coffee and
leisurely reading the newspaper. From what little she has shared, she is
already busy at work, in the storefront kitchen, well into her 12-hour
workday. Her uniform is a stain-soaked apron. Mine, by contrast, is a
tailored suit that includes heels and matching handbag. We are different as
day and night, and yet, from the moment I first met her, I sensed a special
bond, a sisterhood that has, over time, become a quiet, unspoken friendship
thicker than the dough that is made in the back room of her modest bakery.
Our eyes lock immediately each time I scurry in for my usual order — a
dozen lamajoon (the spicy variety), two pounds of seeded string cheese, and
of course, fresh lahvosh bread. There is rarely time for anything more than
small talk. I am rushing through my lunch-hour errands. She has other
customers waiting.
And so, we go our separate ways, knowing almost nothing about one another.
But my sixth sense, that Armenian intuition, those cultural vibrations can’t
help but believe that we have thoughts in common — about life’s journey,
its uncertainties, the untold trials and tribulations, and other personal
struggles. Neither of us asks too many questions. There is no time for
inquisition. The simplicity of a smile and a warm handshake as she hands me
my purchase is sufficient for now.
The sweat drips visibly off of her weary forehead. In the moment of that
observation, I make a mental note that our connection most certainly must
transcend this weekly lamajoon transaction. It feels centuries old, probably
embedded deep within us through our heritage. We are both Armenian women.
The lines on our face are evidence of dreams. And disappointments. I can see
that she remains hopeful. Driven. And determined. So am I. But we are too
busy to discuss this now. What a shame, since there is a small wooden table
in the bakery that would be a perfect retreat — a momentary time out for us
to drink coffee and make conversation. Maybe another day.
Eventually, I think we both got curious. It was time for the exchange to
move beyond the purchase of lamajoon. I stalled my usual exit. The small
talk lingered. I remember it felt like an oven in the store; I must have
acknowledged the heat and offered sympathy for her working conditions. She
conceded that it came with the territory. I confessed that I loved the heat
of our summers. And then, almost in unison — we each offered a morsel of
detail about our personal life — our birthdates. We were both born on the
third of July.
Funny how a small coincidence can cement an unexplainable connection that
both of us had been feeling for months. The floodgates opened. We shared
pieces of our lives. We spoke of love, loss, of life’s hardships. Our
whispered exchange felt like the true confessions between high school girls.
And then one of us gently hinted that we might treat ourselves to a glass of
wine, a cup of Turkish coffee, or something to celebrate our friendship on
the occasion of our upcoming birthdays. Had the counter been a few inches
shorter — we might have embraced at that very moment. But instead, she
bagged up my purchases, and returned to her back room. Her 12-hour day was
only half done. My lunch hour was almost over and it was time for me to
return to my air-conditioned office.
Next month, I will arrive on the day of our birthdays. I suspect she will
bake me something special. I will present her with this story about two
Armenian women. A bond born from lamajoon. A shared birthday. And
friendship.
June 3, 2007
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