Just like music...

As I had mentioned in a previous post my family recently attended two events at the Hollywood Bowl. First there was the July 8th Mozart and the Magic Flute featuring the "shad sirvadz" Isabella Bayrakdarian. As you can see from the picture I've posted my family really packs a picnic feast. Our spread was attracting the attention and complements of passers by, some even asked to take photos and my aunt was serving some of her daughter's home baked desserts to people who had set up their own picnics near us. It was nice to see so many familiar Armenian faces all there to enjoy an evening under the stars.

I'm sorry to report that I didn't really enjoy Mozart's Magic Flute. It's my understanding that he was forced to write this Opera in German and it wasn't one of his favorites. With my limited exposure to Opera I can already tell I'm not into German operas. It just doesn't work in my opinion. I had the opportunity to see La Traviatta in Italy and it flowed and sounded beautiful. I've seen a number of Armenian Operas like Anoush and Zvart and obviously those sounded amazing to me as well. I remember a few years ago when my cousin was graduating from the San Fransisco Conservatory of Music we went to her Master's Concert and she sang numerous pieces and after some Italian selections that I enjoyed very much, she ended with some English and German songs which I didn't like as much. I was disappointed that she ended on that note. Then, when she came out to perform her encore, she began singing an Armenian song and the passion and comfort with which she belted that song out was so overwhelming, that she managed to move me to tears! Just like I prefer hearing my cousin sing in Italian and Armenian I can now also say I've heard Isabella sing in Italian and German and I enjoyed the Italian more.

Tonight was The Spirit of Armenia concert and unlike the July 8th event I would say 90% of the attendees were Armenian so as you can imagine the entire evening was one big reunion of people running into each other and catching up. Before the show started, as always my family set up our usual spread and this time instead of offering dessert to people in the vicinity my family somehow managed to feed random Hollywood Bowl staff = )

I think my favorite performance of the evening was that of Element, and not because my cousin was playing drums for them. They really did a fantastic job! They sounded the best of all the singers and had picked good songs to perform. I wish they had played more songs though because they were an audience favorite. Djivan Gasparyan was great as always but he also should have performed more. The dance ensembles were great but I felt they came out too many times and having the barakhoump end the evening was a weak finish. I wish Adiss had sung a few more songs, I was pretty disappointed that he only sang two. I was hoping he would sing "arev-arev", "dzaghigner-dzaghigner" and "astkher-astkher" and I guess I should feel lukcy that I got 1/3!

The way the program was laid out the first half of the evening was more cultural and classical and the second half more pop with the likes of Andy and Sako. In my opinion those two performers detracted from the rest of the artists. Their styles were so different that they just didn't make sense in the lineup. If there were more pop artists like Arsen Safaryan and Hasmik Karapetyan maybe it would have worked better.

It was my first time seeing Andy perform live and my first time ever seeing/hearing Sako. I can't say I liked Sako's music it just wasn't up my alley. When Andy came out...WOW! What can I say? I wasn't prepared...No one told me Andy has fashioned himself in the image of Gene Simmons! I was speechless! He was sporting the same exact hairstyle as Gene Simmons! I found it hilarious that his guitarist (not the one with the ruby red keytaur, the other one) was sporting a KISS shirt! The audeince was going nuts over him! Personally, I find his nazaly voice annoying and yet his striking resemblence to the likes of Gene Simmons fascinated me and I couldn't tear my eyes away from him. I guess I shouldn't be too shocked though since I do have a thing for Harout Pamboukjian circa 1979 when he was sporting a similar hairdo (but still that was the 70's man! It fit back then!) I felt it was inappropriate of Andy to alter the song "Yerevani siroun aghcheek" by putting his own spin on it and making it "Barsgastani siroun aghcheek" ummm... the evening was called "Spirit of Armenia" not "Spirit of Iran" and what was even sadder to me was the audience actually began cheering and going crazy when he did that. It was in poor taste.

In conclusion, the music wasn't everything I expected it to be, since I would have loved to hear more Sayat Nova or familiar classics like "Sari Siroun Yar" or "Ov too Keghetseeg" but alas I can't have it all my way = )I did feel that the Hollywood bowl looked breath taking with the Armenian eternity symbol projected on to it and when the stage was lit up with red, blue, orange lights I thought the Bowl was looking quite divine!

Borat is... türk ?

Can't resist to share the information... héhé ! According to this french blog, Borat is a copy of Mahir, turkish from Izmir... lol
http://istanbul.blog.lemonde.fr/2007/01/

Here's the links of Mahir in english : www.ikissyou.org & even the british Guardian mentioned it http://www.ikissyou.org/guardian.jpg

By the way, i'm discovering the world of french blogs about Turkey and it's... interesting ! (example here) This country is real complexity in action, even for its own citizens or former citizens (see a june post about armenians of turkey).
Better understand it can help to win our "litigations". It 's like the proverb says : engerit kov@ getsir, payts tshnamiyit al aveli mod getsir (something like that).

Anyway, also checking how it speaks about armenian issue. At first sight the problem is not ignored but really not very present. Bad effect cause it's like minimizing it. Work to be done !

Italians, The Guitar, and Memory: Thoughts from Washington DC

After work on Friday evening, I gave my wife a kiss and hopped in the car driving 8 hours to Washington DC to meet with my clients from Italy, SoloDuo (Guitarists Lorenzo Micheli and Matteo Mela). As featured performers at the Alexandria, VA Guitar Festival Saturday night, they dazzled a packed house at the George Washington Masonic Memorial Theater. After the performance, which featured the works of Antoine de Lhoyer, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Ferdinand Rebay, and Mauro Giuliani, I finally met Stephen Brookes, the arts critic for the Washington Post who had given SoloDuo rave reviews we used on our Solaria CD. He just came back from Cambodia last night and was able to catch the concert. He wrote a piece about the Guitar Festival on his blog, "Most of the She-Bang" explaining the unique place of the classical guitar in the music landscape. If you get a chance to read Stephen's other works on the blog, I think you will find it quite diverse and enlightening culturally.

The good news on the Pomegranate front is that SoloDuo's new album "Solaria" is getting great reviews, and enthusiastic receptions from the guitar community. As a result, negotiations are under way to sign SoloDuo to a three CD recording deal, plus a DVD project. Interesting enough, the DVD project may be recorded in Armenia during a potential Armenia tour in 2008 that is still being worked on. A planned trip to Italy to supervise the Arsineh Khachikian photo shoot of Lorenzo and Matteo is imminent. The next album will feature Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, with a guest appearance by the Torino Symphony Orchestra. The 40'th anniversary of Castelnuovo-Tedesco's death will be celebrated in Italy and thus plans for the album's release is underway.

On another note, Florence Chakerian, the matriarch of the New Mexico Armenian community passed away a few weeks ago. An extended appreciation was written about her and another member of the New Mexico Armenian community in a groong piece HERE. As I mentioned back in 2006 on this blog, Florence was my initial contact to the Armenian community for the YerazArt concerts we presented in Albuquerque in April 2007. I was amazed by her spirit and wits at the age of 91 years old. I finally had a chance to meet her for the first time after months of corresponding with her on April 29, 2007. The groong piece is an interesting one, and from all of us at YerazArt, we will truly miss her.

Photo Credit: Arsineh Khachikian (SoloDuo in Aosta, Italy)- Copyright Pomegranate Music

Summertime digression

Big holidays "dead" period begins after july 14th in France : lots of emptied streets in normal towns becoming mysteriously quiet, vs the crowd with shorts in holiday places (green or sea places). So calm can be an emptied town, a good mood to digress…

Some exceptions this year :
Our new Government keeps on working with new laws voted each day : taxes-pack, penal sanction, universities, new strike-rules in public services, etc… I’m not a specialist but I don’t remember having heard so much law projects adopted at this period, considered as a dead period, and thus often used to fix unpopular decisions, while frenchies are busy with their holidays’ unconcern. The re-entry could be hotter this september !

Another unusual thing is the weather : we’re enjoying a true summer only since last week end. The beginning of july was a moved autumn (we hit a 9°C 10 days ago, before suddenly reaching today’s 30°C temperatures) even on holiday places. Oups for those who hoped to enjoy their yearly big holidays under sun …

Ok, now just for fun : a light & comic “becoming-crazy”-song : Mama Sam by M, alias Mathieu Chedid. Saying his mono-letter artistic name makes you say “aime” = love. He's a kind & sympathic illuminated French musician, good to hear for a change. Sing !

Hay TINTIN #2

The first Tintin translated in Armenian has been a success (famous Belgium comic in french, see an august post last year on diaspora blog)

So here’s the suite, Arevi Dadjar@ (le temple du soleil), and it's making 2 albums translated, cool :o)
http://editions.sigest.net/page000100d9.html

Enjoy !

Pope Benedict calls Non-Catholic Christians defective!

I read a pretty disturbing article this morning.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070710/ap_on_re_eu/pope_other_christians;_ylt=AgUsFJPc2XmF6k0qNsDzroIDW7oF

I don't know why any of this comes as a shock to me! I'm pretty familiar with the history and reputation of the Catholic Church and how they hold steadfast to the belief that they are THE CHURCH, but I guess I wanted to believe that the days of religious self righteousness were in the past. I guess not!

I can't believe that as the religious figurehead of the Catholic Church this Pope would come out and say such things! It's just another discredit to the Catholic Church's reputation if you ask me!

-"non-Catholic Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation"

I was under the impression that any place where "havadatsyals" gathered and prayed God was present. I guess this Pope feels God is only present if Catholics get together and pray!

-"Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," " other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession -- the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles -- and therefore their priestly ordinations are not valid"

Is he trying to insinuate that the "one church" Christ established is the Catholic church? I'm not a theology major or expert but I was a History major and I did study the Ancients (please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) but I was under the impression that Thaddeus & Bartholemew introduced Christianity to Armenia in 301 AD while Christianity wasn't fully accepted in the Roman Empire until Constantine legalized it around 312-313 AD!

Maybe Pope Benedict feels that only the efforts of St. Peter were valid and the fact that other apostles were in Asia spreading the seed of Christ's church isn't noteworthy!

I can not believe he would say "Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation" WOW! That's a bold statement if I've ever heard one! Who died and made this Pope God anyway? I would expect a bit more tolerance and respect for people of other faiths (and in this case Christian faiths for St. Peter's sake) and from A POPE at that!


As Apostolic Christians, we may not have "direct apostolic succession in our priestly ordinations" but to call us "invalid"? This is a DIRECT CONTRADICITION against the Nicaean creed "Havadamk" which is recited by Catholics and Apostolics alike! We clearly state "We believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" but apparently once again this Pope places himself above the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea that took place in 325 AD!

Personally, I think Churches with a history of persecution and sexual abuse of children are pretty "invalid" and "defective", but hey... I don't judge! I'll leave that up to my God!

Am I alone here? Is anyone else outraged at this Pope's audacity?

Universal Campus & Maison d’Arménie

A new subject popping here just because I’ll soon see a friend presently staying at the Maison d’Arménie of the Cité Internationale universitaire de Paris. I don’t think I’ve already mentioned it… (One of my high school teachers once advised us to sometimes “connect to ourselves” in order to see one by one what thoughts were in our mind before and thus understand how we arrived to what we were finally thinking about ; I often like to play that game, very surprising conclusions! The “ourge our?” question rised billion times lol)

Anyway, to me la Maison d’Arménie of the Cité U (as we call it here) is one of the nicest pride Armenian community can praise itself about here.
Quickly about the Cité U: it is an extremely pleasant place in Paris, where students of all around the World can live in when they study in Paris. 40 buildings (les maisons) representing various countries and architecture styles, around a green park, with cultural equipments, largely used by all to plan micro-events of every kind, making the perfect environment for any student in the world, with the bonus of being in Paris.

Created in the 20’s, to promote universal values and peace, Armenia has been represented there from its early beginning thanks to the great benefactor Boghos Nubar Pacha, also founder of the AGBU in 1906. During the 100th anniversary of AGBU that took place in Paris last December one of the events planned took place at the Maison d’Arménie. Armenians of different countries came for the anniversary, so we heard the story of Armenian ladies coming from USA I think, deeply moved to see the Maison d’Arménie again, since they’ve spent very happy times here during their younger years for studies looooooooooong time ago. :o)

So Armenians of all world corners can apply for renting a room there – to better prices than in ordinary Parisian places - but not only Armenians : the website announce 60% Armenians, and 40% non Armenians, opening new horizons one by one. I didn’t live there, but went sometimes for little Armenian events organised or visit friends and met other friends of friends etc. The mood had always been pleasant, specially when the weather was good, cooking some food in one of the common kitchen of the house (5 or 6 floors, with common kitchen and bathrooms), eating out at evening quietly in the arounds, listening some music playing somewhere or watching a game taking place in the parks… in short : sweeties of a student life in an international mood, great for improving the open-mind of world’s students.

My camera is dead so I can’t show you photos, but here’s some illustrated links if you are interested and want concrete information about the Cité U (also available in English and Spanish !)

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cit%C3%A9_internationale_universitaire_de_Paris
http://www.ciup.fr/armenie.htm
http://www.cite-universitaire.org/

Getsé Maison d’Arménie !

Marjane, Chiara, Danielle, Rocky & Simon

They all contributed to an intelligent and funny animation-movie : “Persepolis” based on the contemporary comics of Marjane Satrapi, a French author coming from Iran where she was born and raised until she reach 14 years old.

Chiara Mastroianni, French actress daughter of Catherine Deneuve and Marcello Mastroianni, contributed by giving her voice to the young girl/woman, hero of Persepolis (Marjane, the author herself)
Danielle Darieux, French actress, gave her voice to the exceptionally modern grandmother of Marjane (think about being progressive for a woman in Iran 80 years ago !)
Rocky Balboa…. Euh yes this film character and the famous song “Eye of the Tiger” also inspired the fighting spirit of Marjane - Un un un ! :o)
Simon Abkarian, brought his great touch, giving his voice to the wise but modern father of Satrapi.

This autobiographic story is an excellent glance on what happened in Iran between 70’s /90’s, resulting in today’s strange situation, another complex country! Seeing it through the eye of a rebel child, growing girl, and young woman made it sound sincere and easyer to understand. Funny and also seriously sad feeling succeeding each other also reminded some of the Armenian wandering destiny. A multicoloured identity is not always easy to deal with everyday, even if it can enrich so much.

On the Armenian front here, not much to say. The most noticeable events are taking place in Turkey where the trial of Hrant Dink’s murderer has begun monday.
Journalists of the world are observing it to appreciate Turkey’s real attitude toward human rights and liberty (Reporter Sans Frontières, Amnesty International). Local press doesn’t seem to give it such an echo. When it does, it only reports what Turkish authorities answered to the judge : the murderers weren’t linked to police or any other authority, they proceed by themselves…
During this, an advocate of the accused one, didn’t have any problem to throw publicly a “you have Armenian passports!” to Dink’s family and remind that Hrant Dink had been condemned for treason against Turkey.
Next date for the debates : October the 1st , Hauts les coeurs !

Elderly Armenians in Los Angeles

I'm so sad.

I've seen this gentleman on my drive home a few times in the last few months who braves the hills and expanses of his La Canada abode with a walker. Some older adults are quick with their assistive walking devices, presumably being proactive by using it for the extra support it provides. Others, more commonly, are not. The trek from the front door to the mail box for some of these homes could entail an hour. Seriously.

So, I see this man but never stopped to scope out the situation. I want to but the excuses that cloud my judgment in the few moments he grabs my attention are plentiful. And prove to be pitiful.

He probably has family acting as responsible caretakers.
He wouldn't be living in this house alone.
It's good for him to get out the house and have this daily goal.
If I approached him, he'd probably be suspicious of my efforts.
Our culture doesn't allow for this sort of thing. It's none of my business.

Blah, Blah, Blah.

I know the stas on the demographics of older adults. I know that the elderly fall to blind eyes in our community. I know that falls are so highly prevalent and incapacitating for older adults. I know that I should have known better than to drive away. I know that I will never do this again.

Yesterday something happened, I don't know what, exactly, but I know I didn't do my part as a neighbor. All I know is that there were paramedics and an ambulance in front of his house with a group of guys undeniably Armenian. Which, of course, begs the question of whether he was Armenian. Talk about kicking yourself for not doing your part.

I don’t have any more time than the next person as I try, unsuccessfully, to find ways to simplify my life but I could have found a way to help with his mail, the shopping, to change a light bulb. I know how even the simplest things most of us overlook can become so difficult for the elderly. And the kicker is that I am hyper aware to this social problem. My sensitivities have grown regarding this and if I ever find the time to pull my thoughts together I’ll write about why.

Do you know who the elderly are in your area that you should be keeping an eye out for? Have you ever wondered if they are Armenian. Is it possible that there is an entire community of Armenian elders unnecessarily struggling without family support in the greater Los Angeles area? I don’t know the answers to these questions. But, if I did I would find a way to address the problem.

The moral of my story is that we should be just as aware of protecting the elderly in our community as we are of children. And if there are elderly Armenians who have been lost in the shuffle we, I, you should work to ensure their safety and quality of life. The smallest things count and it really does take a village.

On a brighter note, I hope that everyone enjoys their 4th of July holiday!