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ARMENIAN REPORTER
PO Box 129
Paramus, New Jersey 07652
Tel: 1-201-226-1995
Fax: 1-201-226-1660
Web: http://www.reporter.am
Email: [email protected]
June 9, 2007 -- From the Arts & Culture section
To see the printed version of the newspaper, complete with photographs
and additional content, visit www.reporter.am and download the pdf
files. It's free.
Briefly
1. Anne Nahabedian to appear on HBO pilot
2. Vancouverite's "In the Light" with a new album
3. Mark your calendars, Arpie's coming to Cali
4. "1001 Nights in Iraq" author to meet readers
5. Armenian folk dance in Orange County, Calif.
6. Whatsamatter, you??!!
7. In search of Grigor Khanjian (by Gregory Lima)
8. Music: Nazo is the voice of an urban generation (by Paul Chaderjian)
* Armenian Rapper tells it like it is
9. Art: A conversation with stones (by Betty Panossian-Ter Sargssian)
* An exhibition tells the tales of nature
10. Film: Pomegranate features universal characters who happen to be
Armenian (by Tania Ketenjian)
* Producer Anahid Nazarian proudly recalls someone in Italy telling
her, I have never heard of Armenians but I know that family.
11. Books: Monte Melkonian: From small-town kid to legendary martyr
(Book review by Paul Chaderjian)
* June 12 is the 14th anniversay of Monte Melkonian's death
******************************************* ********************************
Briefly
1. Anne Nahabedian to appear on HBO pilot
Film and TV actress Anne Nahabedian - who was featured on the cover of
the first edition of this Arts & Culture section on March 3, 2007 -
has just landed a role on a new HBO pilot called "Hope Against Hope."
The show is based on New Yorker magazine staff writer and Harvard
Medical School professor Dr. Jerome Groopman's book The Anatomy Of
Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness. The book explores the
way hope affects one's capacity to cope with serious illness. Helping
bring this theme into the homes and minds of millions of viewers will
be Anne's character Esther Weinberg, a religious Jewish woman with
advanced breast cancer. "Hope Against Hope" will be directed by J.J.
Abrams, whose resume includes direction Mission Impossible and
creating the hit TV shows "Felicity," "Lost," "6 Feet Under," among
many others. J.J. is big time, says Anne, but she is too. "So needless
to say, I am very pleased," she says. "We start shooting in less than
two weeks. I am a
recurring character, which means if the show gets picked up, then I'll
appear in four of the first season's eight episodes." Look for "Hope
Against Hope" on HBO in early 2008 and check out Anne's redesigned
website listed below. Congrats, Anne!
connect:
annenahabedian.com
* * *
2. Vancouverite's "In the Light" with a new album
Ladies and Gentlemen, an announcement. Our favorite songstress from
British Columbia (and we're not talking about Sarah McLachlan), has
just released her second album of Armenian traditional and folk songs,
featuring two new and original compositions. "Who?" you may be asking.
Mariam Matossian! Who else? On the heels of her successful "Far From
Home," the Canadian-Armenian has just put together her second album
called "In the Light." "How I loved recording In the Light," she says.
"Adam Popowitz, my amazing producer and friend, and I had an
incredible time in the studio capturing the beauty and depth of each
song. Elliot Polsky, Gordon Grdina, Jesse Zubot and Pepe Danza as well
as some very special guests were all part of my talented team of
musicians who brought each song to life. Every song holds much meaning
for me; each song tells a story. I can't wait for all of you to hear
it." And you can hear it on her website (relaunched and redesigned)
and through CD Baby, baby.
connect:
mariammatossian.com
cdbaby.com
* * *
3. Mark your calendars, Arpie's coming to Cali
Actress, writer, and director Arpie Dadoyan is bringing her talents
and shows to the West Coast and the Luna Playhouse in Glendale,
Calif., from August 21 to 25. Dadoyan will perform three one-woman
shows nightly at 8 p.m., and it's not too early to reserve a seat.
Dadoyan's shows, including "Ipen kim," "Tayen fe" and "The Girl from
What, What!" are guaranteed to entertain, provoke thought, and warrant
loud laughter. The veteran entertainer has performed countless roles
from Chekhov to Arthur Miller and has received rave reviews from
Armenian and non-Armenian theater critics. And big kudos to Luna for
keeping Armenian theater part of Southern California's cultural life
throughout the year. (If you miss Arpie on the West Coast, she has
already been invited to perform "The Girl from What, What!" at CUNY's
Segal Theater in NYC on September 21.
connect:
armeniantheatre.com
1-818-500-7200
* * *
4. "1001 Nights in Iraq" author to meet readers
NASA scientist and former prisoner-of-war Shant Kenderian will discuss
his dramatic memoir 1001 Nights in Iraq, newly released in paperback,
next Saturday, June 16, 2007, at the Borders bookstore in Glendale,
Calif., at 3 p.m. Kenderian's life reads like a movie-of-the-week,
with a childhood spent in the U.S., an estranged father in Iraq, being
drafted into the Iraqi military before the Persian Gulf War, then
becoming an American POW before his return to the U.S. More than just
an interesting story of one man's emotional and historic journey,
Kenderian's memoir takes you behind the scenes of the war Americans
watched on CNN.
connect:
amazon.com
bordersstores.com
* * *
5. Armenian folk dance in Orange County, Calif.
Students of the Hamazkayin Armenian Cultural and Educational
Association's Yeraz School of Armenian Dance will be performing on
Sunday, June 24 at the Hector Godinez High School Performing Arts
Auditorium, 3002 Centennial Road, Santa Ana. More than 30 Yeraz
students will participate in "Ov Hayotz Ashkhar," and leading them
will be Yeraz director Pearlene Varjabedian, who has danced with the
Sayat Nova Dance Company of Boston, the Hamazkayin Erepouni Dance
Group, and the AGBU Daron Dance Ensemble of Boston. Performing a newly
choreographed repertoire based on traditional, classical, and modern
Armenian folk dances, and donning their traditional Armenian costumes,
the dancers are bound to mesmerize.
connect:
[email protected]
yeraz@sbcgl obal.net.
1-714-596-1928
* * *
6. Whatsamatter, you??!!
Tired of making small talk about what Anderson Cooper reported,
discussing Tony Soprano's last criminal acts, or shooting the breeze
about Perez and Paris Hilton? Bored of Harry Potter and Brangelina?
Fugeddaboutit and check out some news-you-can-use in the Armenian
Reporter's Section C - where newborns, or at least fresh news items,
are delivered every Saturday. From drama (and we know drama, not TNT),
to music (which other culture can boast about Mr. Sayat, Cher, and
Nune!), from theater (and relentless drama queens from Boston) to
books (Saroyan, Arax, Kricorian - need we drop more names?), from
opera (Arshak, Anoush, et al.) to comedy (Berberian, Tatoulian, and
Voki), turn to us first, and we'll turn you on to what's hot in all
things Armenian. Be one step ahead of what's gonna be talked about at
Starbucks (or Sidewalk Cafe and Conrad's in Glendale or the Cafe
Mozart on the Upper West Side or Artbridge in Yerevan) come Monday
morning.
connect:
[email protected]
****** ************************************************** *******************
7. In search of Grigor Khanjian
by Gregory Lima
One artist sees a glimmer of light glowing in the shadows and able to
find his way moves confidently on; another sees the gathering darkness
and tries to find matches and candles. Is fate a matter of temperament
and the prevailing ethos at your date of birth?
Grigor Khanjian, born 1926, was able to travel as a Soviet artist:
Paris, Rome, Madrid, and beyond. He was able, whereas another
celebrated Armenian artist living in Yerevan, Ervand Kochar, born
1899, a generation earlier, was forbidden even to accompany his own
paintings to Paris for a major exhibition in his honor. At the last
minute even the packed paintings were forbidden to leave.
Here follows a curious story as it unfolded. It is a story about
seeking to understand a greatly talented artist who was able to work
within the system and still be true to Armenia. Seeing this contrast
with Kochar occurring within roughly the same time frame was too sharp
to just let pass. Who was Grigor Khandjan?
For all his travels, Grigor was emotionally and physically anchored
here. A conservative intellectually, viewing life and culture through
a long timeframe, he would prove courageous in advancing Armenian
interests. But he was no firebrand. He would argue that to be
otherwise under a totalitarian system was simply to be slammed into
silence. He was not silenced, and his work, as we shall see, speaks
for itself. Creative Armenia today is all the richer because an
inspiring diversity of artists felt in their own way and with their
own diverse temperaments that here is where they belonged.
* Discovering Khanjian
No one pointed him out. It was one of those happy days in Yerevan when
a Grigor Khanjian exhibition seemed to loom up a step ahead and
beckoned.
The pleasant pattern made by the curved prows of a row of moored
gondolas, black hulls with touches of red and blue in the interiors,
whispering of balmy, carefree evenings as a tourist in Venice is what
first drew me to him. "Grigor Khanjian, 'Travel Impressions'" was
printed on a poster accompanying a copy of the painting. It invited
attention at the entrance to the Academia Gallery as I walked up
Marshal Baghramyan Avenue toward the American University in Yerevan. I
was already inside and alone in the gallery before I was even aware
that I had pushed open the door.
Inside the gallery it appeared that Khanjian was first able to
travel outside the Soviet Union to Enver Hoxa's Albania, politically
close at that moment to the Soviet Union. His sketchbook evoked an
Illyrian odyssey of a people who still clung to their traditional
costumes and folkways in the late 1950s. He was able to capture
significant detail in a few deft strokes, concentrating on outward
appearance but nevertheless vividly depicting a way of life. He called
it, "In Scanderberg Country," which to me said more about the artist
than the sketches. Scanderberg in that nation's history is their
Vartan, their great warrior who led then Christian Albania to stunning
victories in the religious and ethnic struggle against the invading
Turks. It was not Hoxa's but Scanderberg's Albania he was visiting.
The difference is that he went abroad with his own sense of Armenian
history and this fact will be reflected in his work.
I had personally become acquainted with the Albania in his sketches,
perhaps visiting the same villages, but it was just before the end of
a particularly harsh Communist rule, and signs of social upheaval were
then palpable. Khanjian, there a generation earlier, was looking for
something else. He discerned folk rhythms, and seemed to build his
sketches from the ground directly beneath his feet as it stretched up
the page, generally following a sinuous road that could disappear and
reappear in interesting new forms, as if he were a poet painting in
visual rhymes. I liked him, feeling he was eloquent and speaking to
me.
* Odd years, even years
With regularity, every two years it seemed, he was again able to leave
the Soviet Union with a small group of artists. Now to France and you
could find him sketching in Paris contrasting an emotive Rodin statue
whose romantic posture is almost lost on mothers and their children
peacefully asleep in baby carriages; soon now in Italy with
Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, Khanjian is concentrating not on
the ceiling but again building up from the ground beneath his feet he
focuses on the intent faces and up-craning necks of a group of nuns of
various ages and responses whose eyes move upward, making an original
and arresting scene. The key figure, a young nun with a sharply
upturned head, makes a striking figure. Beyond a saintly posture, you
can read her awe and her innocence, and still beyond that, perhaps
Khanjian's own heart.
It seemed the odd years were spent in Armenia, the even years
punctuated with a trip abroad, and here he was now in Spain. His
sketches are unfailingly excellent in their own genre. He was
certainly clever and obviously immensely talented, but that could
hardly explain why he was able to regularly travel outside the Soviet
Union even during the iron grip of Stalin. It was a question that
clouded my view.
In every impression hung on the gallery wall his stance as an artist
is well outside the scene; he is a traveler who is passing by. And we
pass by with him. He doesn't pretend to know what is inside people's
heads, but he is nevertheless perceptive. He has more eyes than a
dozen tourists. I begin to realize there is not one photograph in
these paintings here. This or that view exists only because he created
it. It pulses with verisimilitude, but he created it. He composed it
in a way that establishes a dialogue between the scene and the viewer.
If this comports with Stalin's Socialist Realism, we have just
discovered a master.
That could be the answer. He is a perfect example of an artist
blooming within the system, happy in his life and work. He paints a
portrait of his attractive wife against fruits and flowers, another of
his son Ara, who has his mouth, and then one of his beautiful daughter
Seda. He is settled with a happy family. He was able to go because he
was a good choice. These were the thoughts before seeing the one
painting from his series done on a visit to Mexico that changed
everything. I stood there, gaping in amazement.
* Far more subtle than expected
This was the final painting and unlike all the other works in the
exhibition. This was propped on an artist's easel at an angle to a
running wall of glass, light streaming through. The painting, covered
by its own plate of glass, was sketched in the interior of a church,
facing the altar. To the right a parishioner is on his knees, head
bowed in an attitude of prayer. There is not the slightest doubt we
are in a holy place. But straight ahead, over an altar and above,
there is neither cross nor religious fresco; there is only an
impenetrable darkness. Without the glimmer of an icon, it stands on
its own as an expressive composition that conveys a mysterious
spirituality. Impressed, and about to turn away, I noticed something
even more mysterious. My face was reflected in the darkness of this
holy place. My likeness emerging out of the dark wall was a sudden
illumination and unsettling. He had painted the impenetrable darkness
of that wall in a size and shape to reflect the face of the viewer. I
bobbled about to be sure, walked away, came back. Khanjian had created
in this painting not only spirituality but a profoundly effective and
immediate dialogue. There could be little doubt about it.
He had provided a haunting image that centered on my own likeness,
mine and yours and that of everyone who looked into it, and he seemed
to ask questions more than make statements. Who are you above this
altar? What do you believe? This artist is far more subtle than
suspected. Now awoke a determination to turn his basic questions back
on the questioner: "Who are you Grigor Khanjian? What do you believe?"
I don't think you are as tame as the totalitarian system may insist.
Having departed this world in the year 2000, he cannot be consulted.
The only immediate recourse is to turn to his body of work and
discover whatever we can. Luckily, the National Gallery of Armenia is
holding a retrospective. His daughter Seda is one of the curators. His
son, Ara, provides some taped interviews in which his father discusses
his work. But we will largely do our own "Travel Impressions" of
Khanjian; do it as perhaps he would do it, standing outside most of
the descriptive and interpretive literature, and in passing just see
what we can see and compose.
Starting with the obvious, one of the first things we can discover
is that he was born in Yerevan, and we can trace his development after
he graduates from the art college here at the end of the Great War. At
16 years old he has already demonstrated his mastery of realistic
drawing in his self-portrait. He introduces himself to us as a
sensitive youth, precocious and alert. He cannot have had much trouble
being admitted, some two years later, at 18, to higher studies and we
find that all his major teachers through the next six years at the
Yerevan Art Institute are Armenian artists. It is clear that here he
learned how to cope with the system.
We also find that he is rooted in Armenian history, its art and
poetry. Among his favorite poets and authors is Hovhannes Toumanian,
for he comes to public recognition for his illustration of Toumanian's
poem "Anoush." He goes on to illustrate "Gikor," a story by the same
author, and Toumanian's poem, "Sako from Lory." His daughter Seda
indicates that "Sako" begins the clearest development of his
distinctive style and his mature work. For this and other work, he
becomes a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, and is elected a
member of the Presidium of the Artists' Union of the Armenian SSR.
Clearly, he has now been accepted as one of Armenia's own within the
Soviet system. Before the age of 30 he is decorated with the Badge of
Honor at the celebration of the Decade of Art and Literature of the
Armenian SSR held in Moscow. Meanwhile, he is also gathering gold
medals. The saccharine, happy oil on canvas of fishermen, "On the
Shores of Lake Sevan," wins a gold medal in Moscow; the canvas
"Anahit" wins one in Yerevan.
Another medal come from abroad (Belgium, gold) and still another
from the Academy of Fine Arts of the USSR (Moscow, silver) for his
illustrations of the Khachatur Abovian novel, "Wounds of Armenia."
It is at this point that he is permitted to leave the USSR with a
group of Russian artists for the tour of Albania where we started
earlier at the Academia Gallery.
He apparently behaved well, for two years later we find him in
Paris, and upon returning exhibiting his French impressions in Moscow
where they are well received. He now sports the title "Honored Artist
of the Armenian SSR." Another two years and the tour of Italy behind
him, we find him elected to the Presidium of the Union of Artists of
the USSR. He is now in the top ranks of the Soviet art scene.
He will continue to work almost exclusively in narrative art as an
illustrator of Armenian literature, in time illuminating Avetik
Isahakian's Fables and Gevorg Emin's The Dance of Sassoon. The Dance
includes one of his most beautiful illuminations, a group dance alive
with color, rhythm, and music.
But before all that he begins to work on the beautifully apt and
sensitively rendered illustrations for Paruir Sevak's poem The
Ever-Tolling Bell Tower, published to acclaim in 1965. The acclaim he
receives, including the gold medal in Moscow, even though he has been
cautioned by the commissariat that he has included too many priests
and still keeps them in the illustrations anyway, becomes a major
turning point in his life.
* A clue in an implied halo
He becomes self-assured enough to permit himself to be elected a
member of the Religious and Architectural Council of the Holy See in
Etchmiadzin. Later he will accompany the Catholicos of All Armenians,
Vazgen I, on a tour of Jerusalem.
In the series of The Ever-Tolling Bell Tower illustrations, there is
a subtle clue to Khanjian's religious outlook. We are at the seat of
the catholicos and the inimitable young Gomidas has been brought in to
sing and be judged. It is a decisive moment. In the long room the
white-bearded catholicos is deep in thought, his left hand cupped to
his ear the better to hear the singing Gomidas. Three of his seated
acolytes who must comment on the performance are individual studies in
apt attention. Beside the boy, standing upright, is the young cleric
who has brought him, beaming with pride.
The clue is in the light through the doorframe. It is only directly
on Gomidas. I see it as an implied halo. It adds an additional
dimension to the genius of Gomidas and to the light and dark of the
moment.
The Ever-Tolling Bell Tower recounts the life and death of the
composer Gomidas at the same time that it is a recounting of the
Armenian Genocide. In the illustrations of the book there is a
celebration of Armenian folk life beyond the music. The composer is
usually seen leaning against a wall or a tree, listening, notebook in
hand, but within the full scene there is also a vigorous folk life and
folk art. This folk life seen in the musical instruments and the dance
is also in the clothing and the implements. The Genocide that murdered
the dancers and attempted to silence the music has also cut off the
hands of the spinners and the cobblers and the carvers and the other
craftspeople, striking an almost fatal blow at the very heart of
Armenian folk culture. It is this enormous and profound loss even
beyond the music that confronts Khanjian as an Armenian and an artist.
There is a connection between his manifest interest in the diverse
folk culture he witnessed and expressed in his tour of Albania and a
strongly aroused interest in preserving and reviving Armenian folk
culture after the Genocide. He will show a full commitment to the
revival of Armenian arts and crafts in the rest of his life.
He designs the book Armenian Churches (1970). He follows up by
designing a book on Armenian religious stone art, Khachkars. In 1975
he is elected a deputy to the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR and
becomes a member of the Presidium.
This is the same year that he goes to Mexico. It is on this journey
he draws the dark interior of the church in which we discover our own
image. It is only now that we face the implied question in the
painting: What do you believe? Could he have also been asking it of
himself?
We will find more of the full answer to this question when Khanjian
decides, upon his return, to go to Etchmiadzin. Meanwhile, however, in
the cultural thaw he completes the painting "He Returned," illustrates
Isahakian's At the Sun, and finishes the illustrations of the book
Western Armenian Poetry, while incidentally he is awarded the Red
Labor Flag. He is also elected to the State Prize Awarding Committee
of the USSR.
In Mexico he had encountered the wall paintings of the great
muralist D. Siqueiros, a favorite of the Mexican people and he
dedicates the publication of his Mexican impressions to the memory of
Siqueiros under the title "Where Are You, Son of the Lord?"
He will continue to tour the world, France and Italy again,
Portugal, Belgium and Holland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan. He will
go to Canada. He will also go to Etchmiadzin.
* Restoring Etchmiadzin
For many years after the annexation of Armenia to the Soviet Union,
the newly and grandly built residential palace of the catholicos at
Etchmiadzin was commandeered and occupied by the Soviet Army as a
local headquarters and as a billet for troops. Only after Stalin's
death and the subsequent thaw was the residence of the catholicos
returned to the church. By this time the palace as well as the
cathedral and the grounds were in disrepair.
Khanjian was asked by Vazgen I to help in the restoration, redesign,
and refurbishing of the interior of the residence. In the grand
reception room, the elegantly tasteful simplicity of the fireplaces,
the stonework and woodwork follow his designs. He also created the
artwork for the great wall tapestries for the residence that were
woven in France, the Vardanank and the Armenian Alphabet tapestries.
The Vardanank is an especially interesting treatment. It commemorates
the epic 451 battle of Vardan Mamikonian for the Christian and
national integrity of Armenia, but not as an old story. It is the
story of the continuing battle against every variety of darkness to
this moment. Among the arrayed warriors he painted outstanding
cultural figures over the subsequent span of Armenia's continued
contribution to civilized existence and the struggle for its place in
the world. It is a tribute to what has proven an indomitable Armenian
spirit.
In the last years of his life Grigor Khanjian, recalling Siqueiros,
turned to rendering his tapesties into murals in Yerevan. He worked on
a ladder on huge panels on the walls of the first station in the
Cascades. He completed the Vardanank and the Alphabet, leaving out a
few of the angels.
Going over to Etchmiadzin, in the cathedral to the deep right corner
as you enter there is a set of rooms with the treasures of the church
and deacons who will serve as guides. One of the knowledgeable deacons
was asked where the Khanjian tapestries are. He indicated the
residence of the catholicos, but, he said, "Khanjian is also here.
Look to the painting at the main altar."
The Cathedral at Etchmiadzin is not a humble church in Mexico. The
impenetrable darkness Khanjian painted there is now illuminated at
Etchmiadzin by Khanjian's painting of the Madonna and Child.
So, we have come full circle. What Khanjian believed in all along is
in prayer and in Armenia.
* Postscript
Khanjian in 1989 was elected a deputy to the Supreme Council of the USSR.
He renounced his membership in 1991 as a sign of protest.
In 1992 he created another tapestry, "Mother Armenia Reborn". The
subsequent mural he attempted at the Cascades remained unfinished at
his death.
From 1993 to 1996 he presented the consecrated canvases "Madonna and
Child," "The Crucifixion," and "The Resurrection" to Saint Vartan's
Cathedral in New York.
* * *
Gregory Lima's essay on Ervand Kochar appeared in the March 24 issue
of the Reporter. The author of The Costumes of Armenian Women
(Tehran, 1974), he started Tehran's leading English-language daily,
Kayhan International, in 1959. He lives in Patterson, N.Y., and
Yerevan.
************************************ ***************************************
8. Music: Nazo is the voice of an urban generation
* Armenian Rapper tells it like it is
by Paul Chaderjian
Long after disco was dead and Rock & Roll was slowly fading off the
MTV pop charts, 10-year-old Nazaret "Nazo" Aslanian used to amaze his
sister by his uncanny ability to sing the lyrics of TV show theme
songs like "Diff'rent Strokes," even after just hearing them a few
times. "I'd hear it a couple of times, and I could just do it," he
says. "I don't know how."
Then came the Rodney King beating. The L.A. Riots. Fear that Western
civilization was coming to an end. MC this and MC that were speaking
up. White boys were singing hip hop heard on underground radio
stations. Soon KISS-FM and Power 106 were spinning songs that
expressed the angst of urban America, songs professing to "fight the
power."
"I grew up on rap," says 24-year-old Nazo. "I grew up on Tupac. The
first CD I ever bought was Warren G, the G-Funk Era in 1993, 14 years
ago. Dr. Dre and Snoop were around also, and I've been listening to a
lot of rap ever since."
The King of Pop and the Material Girl had been unseated by a coup,
underground music of the Black ghetto taking over as the predominant
voice of a new generation. The Stones had grown old, John Lennon was
dead, the Boss was divorcing his wife and his band, and the children
and grandchildren of Baby Boomers were buying more CDs than their
folks.
"I knew how to rap, even before I knew I could do it consciously,"
says Nazo. "I would listen to music, and I would pick up the words. I
would be able to rap entire Tupac songs, perfectly."
Out were Metallica, REM, and Guns and Roses and in were Tupac
Shakur, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Janet Jackson, Dr. Dre, Paula Abdul,
Ludacris, and even MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. Topping the pop charts
and changing the culture of what was cool in America were the rap
lyrics on the lips of school kids from the east to the west.
"Sometimes, I'd be in the car and a song would start," says Nazo,
the Armenian rapper. "I would start rapping with it, and I'd turn the
volume off and keep rapping for a bit. I'd turn the volume on, and I'd
be right on the track."
Hip hop was cool. Rap was hot. And young Nazo was using his keen
memory to sing along the masters on the radio without missing a beat
or forgetting a word. Writing rap was also something that came
naturally to Nazo; he'd been driven by the muses of writing as a
teenager.
"I've been writing poetry since I was a kid," he says. "When I was
13 or 14, I'd write poems for the girls, nice stuff. It's pretty
funny, but I started developing the skills to rhyme and make sense and
all that stuff."
Then came college, the University of California at Irvine, where
Nazo studied computer science and met two friends with whom he's been
collaborating ever since - Kris Palyan and Taron Elizarian (AKA Taron
and Kris P).
* UC Irvine
"When I was a kid, I liked playing video games," say Nazo. We're in
his North Hollywood studio, where he records and produces his music.
"I wanted to make video games, and that's what I wanted to study."
After graduating from the University of California, Nazo found a job
in Orange County in the information technologies sector and still
continues that profession today. "Learning computers has helped me,"
he says. "I learned how to edit my own music, so I don't have to pay
an engineer an hourly fee of hundreds of dollars. It's been very
beneficial for me in terms of music."
While studying computer science, it was Taron who told Nazo, "Bro,
when you sing the songs, other people's song, it's as if you wrote
them." Taron told Nazo that he wanted to produce some beats and asked
Nazo to write the lyrics.
"So I tried," says Nazo, "and eventually, I started to write music.
That was maybe in my sophomore year in college, and I wrote two or
three songs that year."
Taron, Kris and Nazo decided to call themselves "Entity," and they
even recorded one of Nazo's early songs called "Nouns and Verbs" in
their college apartment.
"It was me playing with vocabulary, flipping rhymes, like
complicated, composition comes to me kinetically," he raps. "So I
forward all my findings with finesse phonetically."
Nazo performed a few of his songs in clubs, developing his lyrics
while Kris and Taron developed the beats, developing friendships with
rappers in the black culture.
"After a certain point," he says, "you start comparing your music to
what's out, and you compare your music to what other people are
putting out and what you hear on the radio."
That comparison gave the three friends the confidence they needed to
put their material out for public consumption. "We put together a demo
to see how people react," says Nazo. "We are trying to get management,
trying to get to people in high places, see if I can get on the radio.
That's the current push, and it's hard. It's like a start-up company,
and you're the product. It's never-ending."
* The creative process
Nazo says creating rap music is an interactive process with Kris and
Taron "They create a lot of beats," he says. "I'll go through and say,
'yo, I like this one, I can make a song on this one. And I write my
song. Then I show it to them and see what they think. With choruses,
I'll work with Kris a lot. He's very good with melodies and Taron is
amazing with the drums and sequencing."
Nazo's demo reel is called "Demo of the Year." Why? Because the
12-song presentation shows several different styles of music. "It
shows serious, lyrical, commercial," he says. "It's all these
different styles I'm putting together basically, and I feel like it's
put together thoroughly. It's real. It's not a joke. To me, it's
tight, so that's why I gave it that title. That's what I feel."
"Demo of the Year" is rap. On the album are political rap songs, a
reggae rap song, and even a comedy rap song called "Zankou Chicken."
"There's a funny song, where I talk about Zankou Chicken, which is
like a food chain around here in L.A.," says Nazo. "I'm actually
trying to do something with that song. I'm trying to get the owner to
sell that song as a single in his stores. It's like a different
approach to marketing music too. I feel like if he agrees to it, and
I'm in the middle of negotiation, it's a good way to get exposure, and
it also represents our culture."
Nazo says he wrote Zankou Chicken about 18 months ago. He says he
was listening to a hip hop song about Vans, the sneaker maker. That
inspired him into writing about his favorite chicken joint.
"I was driving in my car and thinking, damn man, what are these guys
doing," he says. "I was like, 'Ever since I was a baby I've been
eatin' my chicken with a little bit of rice, put it on the side, man I
even like mixin' / At first I couldn't get enough of my mama's cookin
/ But got tired of it everyday, ha, just like with my ex-girlfriend /
Now I'm out the house free, I started with KFC / Moved onto El Pollo
Loco but homie, it wasn't me."
Nazo says he wrote the song so that he can stand out as an artist.
"Every rapper that comes out around here is like, you know, tough,
really lyrical, powerful with their words, which is really cool," he
says, "but I felt like I need a way for me to stand out. Not every
artist can make a song that you'll like immediately, that'll get stuck
in your head immediately."
Even though he is rapping, says Nazo, his raps aren't just about
repeating lyrics. "I feel like I'm bringing something new and
innovative," he says. "I don't want to remake the same song. I feel
like, to be relevant, you gotta carve your own niche, your own lane,
your own space. So Zankou Chicken is definitely, probably my most
unique song. And that is part of the package in the 'Demo of the
Year.'"
* Nazo, the Armenian
One of the main things that Nazo says he wants to do as an artist,
aside from trying to be commercially successful, is to get
non-Armenians to like Armenians. "We kinda have a bad rap, out here,"
he says, "especially because of the young guys who are rowdy."
Nazo says at the end of the day, hip hop is music from the Black
culture and the ghetto and the poor. "I like the music, and I like the
rawness of it," he says. "It's real, and when it comes out in my music
I'm talking about living in America, that every American can relate
to. In one song I talk about my own culture. I say, "I'm from a people
dispersed, deserted and cursed / what's worse / we work but we're
moving in reverse / It hurts / We're thinking that we're going to be
reimbursed / Berzerk / Dreamin' while we're screamin' fuck the Turks."
After hearing Nazo's song about the Armenia Genocide on the web, one
fan told him, "I didn't know that about you guys, that you guys had a
genocide. It made me like Armenians more."
That statement, says Nazo, made him feel that he had accomplished
something. "Because that's a great thing to hear," he says, "that
something you created made someone like your culture more."
What has surprised Nazo more after performing "Armenia," was
reaction from an Armenian teenager in the suburb of Montebello. "He
told me, 'Bro, after I heard that song, I wanted to learn more about
my culture and my history.' And that's like the greatest thing anyone
has told me in terms of getting reaction from my music."
* His alias
Rapper Nas, says Nazo, debuted in 1994 and is known as one of the most
talented underground rap lyricists. That's why Nazaret couldn't use
his nickname as his stage name.
"We were thinking of different names," he says. "And Kris said,
'profit.' He brought it up. He said, 'why don't you use profit."
Nazo says he immediately thought Kris was suggesting the word
'prophet,' and he told his friend that 'prophet' would come off too
serious. "There was no way I could be in the commercial business of
hip hop with that type of name."
That's when Kris said he was suggesting the word 'profit,' because
of the duality of its sound and meaning.
"That kind of interested me," says Nazo. "It's a name that can mean
a lot of different things. Anyone who lives out here has that
mentality of financial success, profit. So, "I'm a product of my own
environment. But profit also says something about my people. They are
a hard working people. Armenians have been able to go into any society
and rise, and that's because we value education. We stick together and
work hard. So if you look at the word 'profit' that way, it kind of
represents my culture also."
Nazo says one of the definitions of 'profit' is progress and that as
an artist, he is always trying to make progress. "I try to push the
envelope, do something that I haven't done," he says. "People who hear
'profit' might think prophet, p-h-e-t, and I'm not saying, 'I'm a
prophet,' but I do speak the truth. I try to speak what's real to me
and what I feel. So in that sense, it works out. I really like the
name."
I am Armenian, says Nazo, "but I was born in America. I love my
culture, and I love this country, because it's given me the
opportunity to possibly make music and make a living doing it. It's
all here. I just have to put my hustle on and get to that. And that's
Profit."
connect:
www.thatsprofit.com
myspace.com/thatsprofit
* * *
* PROFIT - ARMENIA lyrics
[Intro]
Yo, in case you ain't know (Akon whattup)
I go by the name of Profit
And MY people are from
Armenia, Armenia
Home of the soul survivors of a terrible genocide
(Armenia, Armenia)
So I wanna share with you my people and some of the things we've been through
(Armenia, Armenia)
[Bridge]
So what you know about?
The struggles that my people went through when the Turks planned on
takin us out
Said what you know about?
Seein that brand new mother gettin raped after she saw her baby drown
Said what you know about?
Barely surviving genocide when my family tree was damn near chopped down
Said what you know about?
How they gathered our leaders, cut they heads off left 'em bleeding
on the ground
What you know about?
Havin trouble smiling 'cause they won't admit to what they done
Now what you know about?
Leaving home for America and runnin from corruption...
[Chrous]
Now I heard they got ghettos in Yerevan
Armenia, Armenia
Now I heard they got ghettos in Yerrort Mas
Armenia, Armenia
And it's comin from the devils who tearin down
Armenia, Armenia
So much trouble in the ghettos of Yerevan
Armenia, Armenia
[Verse 1]
I'm from L.A. baby, eyes on the prize
Ears on my peers, yo I wonder where we'll be in 50 years
Or even a hundred, revolutionary war until we won it
If I had the money homie I would fund it
Return our lands to what they were
How the hell did we deserve to be placed in this situation where
nobody's concerned?
But I'll tell you this -
If I just keep feelin sorry for myself then what's gon happen to my kids?
Papa said to his son, that he'll never live to see the day
When we could find a way to finally make Turkey pay
Forever in my heart, it stays
To make sure I won't forget where I'm from, I'm from...
[Short Bridge]
What you know about?
Havin trouble smiling 'cause they won't admit to what they done
Now what you know about?
Leaving home for America and runnin from corruption...
[Chorus]
[Verse 2]
Sometimes I feel hopeless, head down, it's hard to find a way around it
Full of doubt but I'm still climbin this mountain
And drinkin from the fountain of youth
Because the new generation is the foundation
To build a movement
If you tell me that I'm just dreamin, I ain't gon fake it
But a dream will only go as far as you choose to take it
At this point we ain't got nothin to lose, except our essence
My suggestion, yo lets learn from the Jews, and make the best of
What we got with every talent 'till we rise in our societies
And link with others of our kind, no time for silly rivalries
I'm sometimes amazed how one of my brothers
Could have enough hate to hurt another one of my brothers
There's nothin worse homie take it slow, we all in the same boat
And if it sink, then we all have to pay for it
But still I smile through every trial, it makes me proud
To know that I'm from Armenia
[Bridge]
[Chorus]
[Outro]
We were crumbled, crushed
But those of us who was lucky enough to climb up out that struggle
need to carry on the torch for us Armenians as a people.
I'm talking about the new generation, the old generation, everybody.
You know there's some Armenians that don't even know about a genocide?
There's young Armenian minds that have no idea about this, just
growin up living their life.
All the while, we, we're dying out as a race basically.
So how are YOU gonna help stop THAT? Or are you just gonna turn your
back and act like everything is cool?
They're STILL defeating us - America won't admit to it for political
reasons, Turkey's their ally, so it's up to us.
Now you ask me 'Nazo how?' - How did the Jews do it?
How have we been able to go into any society and rise? And become
the doctors, lawyers, accountants?
And I see it happening today in America man which is a beautiful thing,
But we gotta make sure we keep it in our hearts with every move we make.
How can we turn on each other?
That's what I don't get.
We can't let America tear us apart, and money tear us apart.
Life is hard, but so is death! And knowing that we got crushed and
robbed and raped and castrated and enslaved
And basically almost completely destroyed!
And they still won't admit to it, they still won'te let us bury the dead...
Time is killing us slowly and if we don't do nothing about it
And I'm talking about everybody
If we don't do nothing about it, then that's it man we're gone.
Armenia is an ancient people.
(Armenia, Armenia)
(Armenia, Armenia)
* * *
* Zankou Chicken
Ever since I was a baby I've been eatin my chicken
With a little bit of rice, put it on the side, man I even like mixin'
At first I couldn't get enought of my mama's cookin
But got tired of it everyday, ha, just like with my ex-girlfriend.
Now I'm out the house free, I started with KFC
Moved onto El Pollo Loco but homie, it wasn't me.
Gotta love the butter waffles at Roscoes, but something's missin
That's until I found my around to Zankou Chicken.
Got my hand up on a thigh, got my hand up on a breast
Yo it's love at first sight and I even made a mess
People lookin at me funny like "What's wrong with that dude?"
I ain't care, "Leave me alone when I'm eatin my food!"
Kinda heavy but it's good, with garlic it's somethin new
If you lucky they gon' even open up around YOU
Nowadays people checkin for me from the way I'm spittin
So I had to go and do one for Zankou Chicken.
**************************************** ***********************************
9. Art: A conversation with stones
* An exhibition tells the tales of nature
by Betty Panossian-Ter Sargssian
Some women like sewing and stitching. The Armenian painter, sculptor,
and installation artist Heriknaz Galstian is one of them. But she does
her needlework with such natural media as stones, metals, wood,
textiles, and more stones!
An exhibition of conceptual art, sculpture, and installations
titled, "Ancient Gods," which ran through May 31 at the Narekatsi Art
Institute in Yerevan, exposed her collection of stone-art crafts. The
artwork sang about the harmony they had with nature and spoke of a
woman's enthusiasm and passion to do patchwork with stones.
* Stone messages
To Heriknaz Galstian, stones and other natural media are not simply
objects of inspiration. They have a much important meaning, that of
transmitting messages to their audience. "The issue is not to stitch
up the materials, but to raise awareness in the people so that they
will not destroy nature and our culture," says the artist.
Hrovartak (Manifesto) is a model for this mission. It is a
naturalistic open letter, in which a dead tree tells the tale of the
wiped-out forest. Pieces of trunk crust are sewed up to form the
message board, where the artist has painted in soothing color a Tree
of Life (Genats dzar), and an Armenian symbol of life.
When looked at closely, the bark has its natural rough bumps on it,
which appear to be the letters of nature's mysterious language. "And I
realized that the trees are trying to tell us something," Heriknaz
Galstian says. It is with her stitches that she tries to restore that
message and bring it into the public.
Another piece mingling natural and cultural heritages is the stone
calendar. Its inspiration came from a blurred black-and-white photo of
the sun calendar published in a Soviet-era textbooks. The textbook
referred to it as a most ancient calendar, at the same time mentioning
that the calendar showed the months and days of the solar year. "It is
an important, but forgotten aspect of our cultural richness, and I
decided we should protect it and save it from neglect." The artist
stitched back the calendar from being lost in time and memory.
One wall of the walls of the exhibition room was occupied by hmayils
(charms and amulets), meant to safeguard souls and keep evil spirits
away. "They keep the evil eye (char achk) away in such an efficient
way. Hang them on your doorstep and the evil eye will take a direct
hit," laughs Heriknaz.
Very decorative in form, these hmayils are small stones, tufa and
pumice, carved into folkloric shapes and images, such as pomegranates
and farm animals.
Heriknaz says the hmayils began as a family gift. "I made the very
first stone Hmayil for my nephew, and used his horoscope sign,
Taurus."
Much of the work on exhibit may leave the impression of being
decorative objects, crafts, and artifacts at first glance. Only after
considering them for some time does one see their uniqueness and
meaning.
Heriknaz Galstian has a classical fine-arts education. In some of
the first of her more than 40 exhibitions she showed classical
paintings and sculpture, but over time Galstian has established
herself in naturalistic conceptual art. "Archaic art is the one
nearest to nature, has no conflicts with it," she thinks. She does not
try to conquer nature, though, but to accentuate it, be a medium for
its messages, and "these objects and installations are a medium
through which I can express the messages."
* Middle-aged woman picking stones
Although the stones in the works of Heriknaz seem to have been picked
from nature and used as they are after a quick polish, none of them is
being used in its raw form. They are carefully selected during
excursions in nature or a visit to a stone quarry. The artist's eyes
look for stones everywhere; on city sidewalks, in parks, and even in
the courtyards of buildings.
Embroidery and needlework take time and require patience, a quality
that Heriknaz has plenty of. Making holes in the stones with the
simple tools of a sculptor takes a lot of time and energy, and a look
at her hands tells of her toil. "Oh! Look at my hands. I have lost my
fingerprints!" she sighs.
Most of the stones are Armenian tufa, a soft and easy-to-work-with
volcanic stone with light colors, rose, orange, yellow, and even,
blue.
* Ancient gods?
Although the exhibition was officially titled "Ancient Gods," Heriknaz
Galstian was slightly surprised when I mentioned it as the title. "I
am a Christian, and wouldn't name my collection after ancient gods,
especially when we have a seraph here," Heriknaz told me with a smile,
pointing to an angel in the corner.
"Ah! These stones tell so much to me. We talk all the time," she says.
In order to obtain the thin stone tiles that serve the raw material
for most of her work, Heriknaz saws up the stones with a handsaw. "As
I open them with my saw (you see, I have opened layers that had been
closed for millions of years), a silent conversation flows between
us."
With that she turns to look at one of her works. Her look is tender
and loving, and one could see that their conversation was still going
on.
*************************************** ************************************
10. Film: Pomegranate features universal characters who happen to be Armenian
* Producer Anahid Nazarian proudly recalls someone in Italy telling
her, I have never heard of Armenians but I know that family.
by Tania Ketenjian
NAPA,Calif. - It's amazing how much can come across within an hour and
a half of a film, how many conceptions, or misconceptions, what risks
can be taken, and the depth to which a story can be told. That is what
is so potent in the film Pomegranate. Much like the fruit itself, it
is full of many stories within the contained space of a film. As
producer and writer Anahid Nazarian reflects, "film is the most
powerful medium because it combines music, writing, images,
photography, acting. It's the blend of every art and discipline. It
has the power of all of those combined." And it's true. Within a
gesture or a sound, so much comes across and the layers of an idea can
be revealed in a split second.
Pomegranate is a road-trip movie. "Originally it was going to be a
road trip across the U.S. but we realized we couldn't do that so we
made it a road trip across L.A." The premise of the story is this: Ara
and Jack were cousins and best friends in Beirut, but Jack left Beirut
17 years ago and came to America. In the film, Ara has come to L.A. to
reunite with Jack and his family that emigrated here. After leaving
Beirut, and suffering a sense of distance and conflict with family,
Jack has turned away from his relatives. But Ara brings him back to
them and in so doing brings Jack closer to himself. The film raises
all kinds of questions and seeming taboos within Armenian culture -
issues around family and loss, culture and heritage, marriage and sex,
poetry, love - charged issues that many Armenians seem to have a clear
moral stance on. But as Anahid says, "We hate to admit it but
Armenians are like everybody else. We all go through these
experiences. Since Armenians don't get much exposure, we always want
to be seen through a glowing lens so bringing these issues up was a
challenge. That's why we did it in a humorous way, in a charming way.
That's why the story is endearing." Plus she adds that a film cannot
be fun or dramatic without some conflict. It needs both good and bad.
A movie such as this one is about life and it would be unrealistic to
not include both the triumphs and the tragedies.
* Family values
Because of this sense of realness, by the end of the film, you feel
quite tied to the characters - Ara, the alcohol-drinking priest from
Lebanon who plays the oud and craves an egg McMuffin; Jack, who makes
pornographic films and forgets his girlfriend's birthday; Aunt Sophia,
the mature escort who accepts jewelry from older men and has a strong
opinion about marriage; and of course Grandpa, a cigar-smoking,
gambling dreamer who recites poetry and believes in love, at all
costs. Anahid created these characters but she didn't necessarily
relate to them. "I didn't relate to any one specific charater," Anahid
said, "but the best compliment I have received on the film was from
someone in Italy. It won a great prize there and someone came to me
and said, I have never heard of Armenians but I know that family."
Somehow the viewer relates to each person in some way because they
each speak to a part of us.
That is the inherent power of film - its ability to cross over
cultures and reach a common ground, instilling a collective experience
and connecting all the viewers. When it was shown in Napa, California,
last Friday, the theater was nearly full; almost 400 people were there
to see Pomegranate, an independent, Armenian film. Looking around the
room didn't offer the same feeling that most Armenian events do - lots
of hushed conversation in Armenian, brown-haired, brown-eyed,
traditionally dressed men and women. Because of the surprisingly small
number of Armenians in the audience, the experience was a poignant
one; it proved that Pomegranate could reach so many different people.
They were laughing; they understood the cultural implications; and, in
the end, they were fascinated by Armenians' presence in America today.
For Anahid, affecting people in this way makes the filmmaking process
all worth it. "I can do whatever I want in a closet but when you're
making a film, you have to think of the audience. If the audience
likes it, then it's very rewarding. Making a film is so hard. Finally
when you show it, that's the first time you say to yourself you know
it was worth it."
* On Coppola's team
Anahid Nazarian has worked in film her entire professional life and
she has worked with one of the most important directors of the 20th
century, Francis Ford Coppola. She has traveled around the world,
immersed herself in Coppola's films, essentially living the life of
the film he was making year after year. She just came back from
Bulgaria and is on her way to Buenos Aires. Needless to say, she has
had an exciting and full life so far. But none of this could have
prepared her for the rigors of producing an independent movie. "When
you work on a big-budget film, there is a staff of nearly 80 people
and everyone has their particular job. There's very little crossover.
But when you're making an independent film, you have to do everything
yourself. I learned so much making this film, and I made many
mistakes." Two of the most important things she learned: "Never hire
someone just based on their resume and not their character, and never
use your own money."
In the end, however, with its challenges and the hard work it
entailed, making Pomegranate offered Anahid a sense of pride. It was a
totally personal effort, a film that came from her heart, and with a
small staff and a little money, she made it happen. It would have been
easy to give up, to let the project go, but they all stuck through it:
Kraig Kuzirian the director, Anahid Nazarian the producer, and all the
actors. Sometimes it's worth the challenge because the success is that
much sweeter.
Pomegranate will have a run at a few more festivals over the next
months and will soon be released on DVD.
******************************************** *******************************
11. Books: Monte Melkonian: From small-town kid to legendary martyr
* June 12 is the 14th anniversay of Monte Melkonian's death
Book review by Paul Chaderjian
By any account, the enigmatic genius, scholar, political activist,
soldier, and freedom fighter Monte Melkonian led a short but
extraordinary life. In My Brother's Road, which will be released in
paperback in August, Monte's brother Markar, with the help of Monte's
widow Seta, chronicles one Californian's journey from small town kid
to legendary martyr.
Monte's modern-day epic begins in 1969, when the Melkonians visit
their maternal grandmother's ancestral village in Western Armenia,
some 55 years after the Genocide. At the impressionable age of 11,
Monte sees his grandmother's birthplace, watches the Turks who have
taken up residence in the village, notices that the Armenian Church
has become a Turkish movie theater, and ponders about the outlines
left when crosses were chiseled off doors.
His people had disappeared from the village and the region, millions
of Armenians had evaporated from the face of the planet, and Turkey
still denied it had done anything wrong. This great riddle and his
family's visit to the old country shape Monte's eventual mission to
seek justice for the crimes against his people.
Monte's humanitarian concern develops further at Mt. Whitney High
School in Visalia, California. In 1973 at the age of 15, Monte - the
"mentally gifted minor" bored with his high school courses - is
invited to spend three months in Japan as a sister-city representative
from Visalia to Miki City, near Osaka.
After the visit, Monte decides to stay with some friends in Japan,
to earn money teaching English and then to travel through Southeast
Asia on his own. These travels raise his awareness of peoples'
struggles for self-determination and independence.
During his studies at UC Berkeley, Monte becomes feverish about
righting the wrongs done to Armenians. He decides to bypass doctoral
studies at Oxford and commits himself selflessly to the Armenian
independence movement in the early 1980s.
Monte's mission for justice takes him to the suburbs of Beirut, to
Tehran, and to Paris, where his activities eventually land him in a
European jail cell. These chapters of his life read like a fictional
Hollywood account of a hero's or antihero's intriguing involvement
with secret armies, assassination plots, and lessons learned to make
possible his victories on the battlefield of Karabakh at the end of
his life.
When Perestroika and Glastnost present the opportunity for Monte's
people to declare their independence from the USSR, the modern-day
freedom fighter's focus shifts from Western Armenia to Karabakh, where
Armenians are the victims of barbaric pogroms and Armenian children
are burned on kitchen stoves, reminiscent of the atrocities suffered
by his grandmother's family and others like them during the Armenian
Genocide of 1915.
During the early 1990s, when Armenians are cold and hungry, facing
an economic and energy blockade, Monte and others like him from the
diaspora reach back to the homeland from all obscure corners of the
world. The sons and daughters of the diaspora, the grandchildren of
Genocide survivors return to their ancestral homeland to help turn
their people from victims to victors.
My Brother's Road is an intriguing look into the psychology of a man
who left "the good life" behind in the bountiful San Joaquin Valley of
Central California to stand up for those oppressed overseas. It is
both an educational and historical atlas of the road traveled not just
by one man but by a people struggling for cultural preservation and
freedom near the end of the 20th century.
connect:
mybrothersroad.com
melkonian.or g
amazon.com
barnesandnoble.com
***************** ************************************************** ********
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(c) 2007 CS Media Enterprises LLC. All Rights Reserved
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Web: http://www.reporter.am
Email: [email protected]
June 9, 2007 -- From the Arts & Culture section
To see the printed version of the newspaper, complete with photographs
and additional content, visit www.reporter.am and download the pdf
files. It's free.
Briefly
1. Anne Nahabedian to appear on HBO pilot
2. Vancouverite's "In the Light" with a new album
3. Mark your calendars, Arpie's coming to Cali
4. "1001 Nights in Iraq" author to meet readers
5. Armenian folk dance in Orange County, Calif.
6. Whatsamatter, you??!!
7. In search of Grigor Khanjian (by Gregory Lima)
8. Music: Nazo is the voice of an urban generation (by Paul Chaderjian)
* Armenian Rapper tells it like it is
9. Art: A conversation with stones (by Betty Panossian-Ter Sargssian)
* An exhibition tells the tales of nature
10. Film: Pomegranate features universal characters who happen to be
Armenian (by Tania Ketenjian)
* Producer Anahid Nazarian proudly recalls someone in Italy telling
her, I have never heard of Armenians but I know that family.
11. Books: Monte Melkonian: From small-town kid to legendary martyr
(Book review by Paul Chaderjian)
* June 12 is the 14th anniversay of Monte Melkonian's death
******************************************* ********************************
Briefly
1. Anne Nahabedian to appear on HBO pilot
Film and TV actress Anne Nahabedian - who was featured on the cover of
the first edition of this Arts & Culture section on March 3, 2007 -
has just landed a role on a new HBO pilot called "Hope Against Hope."
The show is based on New Yorker magazine staff writer and Harvard
Medical School professor Dr. Jerome Groopman's book The Anatomy Of
Hope: How People Prevail in the Face of Illness. The book explores the
way hope affects one's capacity to cope with serious illness. Helping
bring this theme into the homes and minds of millions of viewers will
be Anne's character Esther Weinberg, a religious Jewish woman with
advanced breast cancer. "Hope Against Hope" will be directed by J.J.
Abrams, whose resume includes direction Mission Impossible and
creating the hit TV shows "Felicity," "Lost," "6 Feet Under," among
many others. J.J. is big time, says Anne, but she is too. "So needless
to say, I am very pleased," she says. "We start shooting in less than
two weeks. I am a
recurring character, which means if the show gets picked up, then I'll
appear in four of the first season's eight episodes." Look for "Hope
Against Hope" on HBO in early 2008 and check out Anne's redesigned
website listed below. Congrats, Anne!
connect:
annenahabedian.com
* * *
2. Vancouverite's "In the Light" with a new album
Ladies and Gentlemen, an announcement. Our favorite songstress from
British Columbia (and we're not talking about Sarah McLachlan), has
just released her second album of Armenian traditional and folk songs,
featuring two new and original compositions. "Who?" you may be asking.
Mariam Matossian! Who else? On the heels of her successful "Far From
Home," the Canadian-Armenian has just put together her second album
called "In the Light." "How I loved recording In the Light," she says.
"Adam Popowitz, my amazing producer and friend, and I had an
incredible time in the studio capturing the beauty and depth of each
song. Elliot Polsky, Gordon Grdina, Jesse Zubot and Pepe Danza as well
as some very special guests were all part of my talented team of
musicians who brought each song to life. Every song holds much meaning
for me; each song tells a story. I can't wait for all of you to hear
it." And you can hear it on her website (relaunched and redesigned)
and through CD Baby, baby.
connect:
mariammatossian.com
cdbaby.com
* * *
3. Mark your calendars, Arpie's coming to Cali
Actress, writer, and director Arpie Dadoyan is bringing her talents
and shows to the West Coast and the Luna Playhouse in Glendale,
Calif., from August 21 to 25. Dadoyan will perform three one-woman
shows nightly at 8 p.m., and it's not too early to reserve a seat.
Dadoyan's shows, including "Ipen kim," "Tayen fe" and "The Girl from
What, What!" are guaranteed to entertain, provoke thought, and warrant
loud laughter. The veteran entertainer has performed countless roles
from Chekhov to Arthur Miller and has received rave reviews from
Armenian and non-Armenian theater critics. And big kudos to Luna for
keeping Armenian theater part of Southern California's cultural life
throughout the year. (If you miss Arpie on the West Coast, she has
already been invited to perform "The Girl from What, What!" at CUNY's
Segal Theater in NYC on September 21.
connect:
armeniantheatre.com
1-818-500-7200
* * *
4. "1001 Nights in Iraq" author to meet readers
NASA scientist and former prisoner-of-war Shant Kenderian will discuss
his dramatic memoir 1001 Nights in Iraq, newly released in paperback,
next Saturday, June 16, 2007, at the Borders bookstore in Glendale,
Calif., at 3 p.m. Kenderian's life reads like a movie-of-the-week,
with a childhood spent in the U.S., an estranged father in Iraq, being
drafted into the Iraqi military before the Persian Gulf War, then
becoming an American POW before his return to the U.S. More than just
an interesting story of one man's emotional and historic journey,
Kenderian's memoir takes you behind the scenes of the war Americans
watched on CNN.
connect:
amazon.com
bordersstores.com
* * *
5. Armenian folk dance in Orange County, Calif.
Students of the Hamazkayin Armenian Cultural and Educational
Association's Yeraz School of Armenian Dance will be performing on
Sunday, June 24 at the Hector Godinez High School Performing Arts
Auditorium, 3002 Centennial Road, Santa Ana. More than 30 Yeraz
students will participate in "Ov Hayotz Ashkhar," and leading them
will be Yeraz director Pearlene Varjabedian, who has danced with the
Sayat Nova Dance Company of Boston, the Hamazkayin Erepouni Dance
Group, and the AGBU Daron Dance Ensemble of Boston. Performing a newly
choreographed repertoire based on traditional, classical, and modern
Armenian folk dances, and donning their traditional Armenian costumes,
the dancers are bound to mesmerize.
connect:
[email protected]
yeraz@sbcgl obal.net.
1-714-596-1928
* * *
6. Whatsamatter, you??!!
Tired of making small talk about what Anderson Cooper reported,
discussing Tony Soprano's last criminal acts, or shooting the breeze
about Perez and Paris Hilton? Bored of Harry Potter and Brangelina?
Fugeddaboutit and check out some news-you-can-use in the Armenian
Reporter's Section C - where newborns, or at least fresh news items,
are delivered every Saturday. From drama (and we know drama, not TNT),
to music (which other culture can boast about Mr. Sayat, Cher, and
Nune!), from theater (and relentless drama queens from Boston) to
books (Saroyan, Arax, Kricorian - need we drop more names?), from
opera (Arshak, Anoush, et al.) to comedy (Berberian, Tatoulian, and
Voki), turn to us first, and we'll turn you on to what's hot in all
things Armenian. Be one step ahead of what's gonna be talked about at
Starbucks (or Sidewalk Cafe and Conrad's in Glendale or the Cafe
Mozart on the Upper West Side or Artbridge in Yerevan) come Monday
morning.
connect:
[email protected]
****** ************************************************** *******************
7. In search of Grigor Khanjian
by Gregory Lima
One artist sees a glimmer of light glowing in the shadows and able to
find his way moves confidently on; another sees the gathering darkness
and tries to find matches and candles. Is fate a matter of temperament
and the prevailing ethos at your date of birth?
Grigor Khanjian, born 1926, was able to travel as a Soviet artist:
Paris, Rome, Madrid, and beyond. He was able, whereas another
celebrated Armenian artist living in Yerevan, Ervand Kochar, born
1899, a generation earlier, was forbidden even to accompany his own
paintings to Paris for a major exhibition in his honor. At the last
minute even the packed paintings were forbidden to leave.
Here follows a curious story as it unfolded. It is a story about
seeking to understand a greatly talented artist who was able to work
within the system and still be true to Armenia. Seeing this contrast
with Kochar occurring within roughly the same time frame was too sharp
to just let pass. Who was Grigor Khandjan?
For all his travels, Grigor was emotionally and physically anchored
here. A conservative intellectually, viewing life and culture through
a long timeframe, he would prove courageous in advancing Armenian
interests. But he was no firebrand. He would argue that to be
otherwise under a totalitarian system was simply to be slammed into
silence. He was not silenced, and his work, as we shall see, speaks
for itself. Creative Armenia today is all the richer because an
inspiring diversity of artists felt in their own way and with their
own diverse temperaments that here is where they belonged.
* Discovering Khanjian
No one pointed him out. It was one of those happy days in Yerevan when
a Grigor Khanjian exhibition seemed to loom up a step ahead and
beckoned.
The pleasant pattern made by the curved prows of a row of moored
gondolas, black hulls with touches of red and blue in the interiors,
whispering of balmy, carefree evenings as a tourist in Venice is what
first drew me to him. "Grigor Khanjian, 'Travel Impressions'" was
printed on a poster accompanying a copy of the painting. It invited
attention at the entrance to the Academia Gallery as I walked up
Marshal Baghramyan Avenue toward the American University in Yerevan. I
was already inside and alone in the gallery before I was even aware
that I had pushed open the door.
Inside the gallery it appeared that Khanjian was first able to
travel outside the Soviet Union to Enver Hoxa's Albania, politically
close at that moment to the Soviet Union. His sketchbook evoked an
Illyrian odyssey of a people who still clung to their traditional
costumes and folkways in the late 1950s. He was able to capture
significant detail in a few deft strokes, concentrating on outward
appearance but nevertheless vividly depicting a way of life. He called
it, "In Scanderberg Country," which to me said more about the artist
than the sketches. Scanderberg in that nation's history is their
Vartan, their great warrior who led then Christian Albania to stunning
victories in the religious and ethnic struggle against the invading
Turks. It was not Hoxa's but Scanderberg's Albania he was visiting.
The difference is that he went abroad with his own sense of Armenian
history and this fact will be reflected in his work.
I had personally become acquainted with the Albania in his sketches,
perhaps visiting the same villages, but it was just before the end of
a particularly harsh Communist rule, and signs of social upheaval were
then palpable. Khanjian, there a generation earlier, was looking for
something else. He discerned folk rhythms, and seemed to build his
sketches from the ground directly beneath his feet as it stretched up
the page, generally following a sinuous road that could disappear and
reappear in interesting new forms, as if he were a poet painting in
visual rhymes. I liked him, feeling he was eloquent and speaking to
me.
* Odd years, even years
With regularity, every two years it seemed, he was again able to leave
the Soviet Union with a small group of artists. Now to France and you
could find him sketching in Paris contrasting an emotive Rodin statue
whose romantic posture is almost lost on mothers and their children
peacefully asleep in baby carriages; soon now in Italy with
Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, Khanjian is concentrating not on
the ceiling but again building up from the ground beneath his feet he
focuses on the intent faces and up-craning necks of a group of nuns of
various ages and responses whose eyes move upward, making an original
and arresting scene. The key figure, a young nun with a sharply
upturned head, makes a striking figure. Beyond a saintly posture, you
can read her awe and her innocence, and still beyond that, perhaps
Khanjian's own heart.
It seemed the odd years were spent in Armenia, the even years
punctuated with a trip abroad, and here he was now in Spain. His
sketches are unfailingly excellent in their own genre. He was
certainly clever and obviously immensely talented, but that could
hardly explain why he was able to regularly travel outside the Soviet
Union even during the iron grip of Stalin. It was a question that
clouded my view.
In every impression hung on the gallery wall his stance as an artist
is well outside the scene; he is a traveler who is passing by. And we
pass by with him. He doesn't pretend to know what is inside people's
heads, but he is nevertheless perceptive. He has more eyes than a
dozen tourists. I begin to realize there is not one photograph in
these paintings here. This or that view exists only because he created
it. It pulses with verisimilitude, but he created it. He composed it
in a way that establishes a dialogue between the scene and the viewer.
If this comports with Stalin's Socialist Realism, we have just
discovered a master.
That could be the answer. He is a perfect example of an artist
blooming within the system, happy in his life and work. He paints a
portrait of his attractive wife against fruits and flowers, another of
his son Ara, who has his mouth, and then one of his beautiful daughter
Seda. He is settled with a happy family. He was able to go because he
was a good choice. These were the thoughts before seeing the one
painting from his series done on a visit to Mexico that changed
everything. I stood there, gaping in amazement.
* Far more subtle than expected
This was the final painting and unlike all the other works in the
exhibition. This was propped on an artist's easel at an angle to a
running wall of glass, light streaming through. The painting, covered
by its own plate of glass, was sketched in the interior of a church,
facing the altar. To the right a parishioner is on his knees, head
bowed in an attitude of prayer. There is not the slightest doubt we
are in a holy place. But straight ahead, over an altar and above,
there is neither cross nor religious fresco; there is only an
impenetrable darkness. Without the glimmer of an icon, it stands on
its own as an expressive composition that conveys a mysterious
spirituality. Impressed, and about to turn away, I noticed something
even more mysterious. My face was reflected in the darkness of this
holy place. My likeness emerging out of the dark wall was a sudden
illumination and unsettling. He had painted the impenetrable darkness
of that wall in a size and shape to reflect the face of the viewer. I
bobbled about to be sure, walked away, came back. Khanjian had created
in this painting not only spirituality but a profoundly effective and
immediate dialogue. There could be little doubt about it.
He had provided a haunting image that centered on my own likeness,
mine and yours and that of everyone who looked into it, and he seemed
to ask questions more than make statements. Who are you above this
altar? What do you believe? This artist is far more subtle than
suspected. Now awoke a determination to turn his basic questions back
on the questioner: "Who are you Grigor Khanjian? What do you believe?"
I don't think you are as tame as the totalitarian system may insist.
Having departed this world in the year 2000, he cannot be consulted.
The only immediate recourse is to turn to his body of work and
discover whatever we can. Luckily, the National Gallery of Armenia is
holding a retrospective. His daughter Seda is one of the curators. His
son, Ara, provides some taped interviews in which his father discusses
his work. But we will largely do our own "Travel Impressions" of
Khanjian; do it as perhaps he would do it, standing outside most of
the descriptive and interpretive literature, and in passing just see
what we can see and compose.
Starting with the obvious, one of the first things we can discover
is that he was born in Yerevan, and we can trace his development after
he graduates from the art college here at the end of the Great War. At
16 years old he has already demonstrated his mastery of realistic
drawing in his self-portrait. He introduces himself to us as a
sensitive youth, precocious and alert. He cannot have had much trouble
being admitted, some two years later, at 18, to higher studies and we
find that all his major teachers through the next six years at the
Yerevan Art Institute are Armenian artists. It is clear that here he
learned how to cope with the system.
We also find that he is rooted in Armenian history, its art and
poetry. Among his favorite poets and authors is Hovhannes Toumanian,
for he comes to public recognition for his illustration of Toumanian's
poem "Anoush." He goes on to illustrate "Gikor," a story by the same
author, and Toumanian's poem, "Sako from Lory." His daughter Seda
indicates that "Sako" begins the clearest development of his
distinctive style and his mature work. For this and other work, he
becomes a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, and is elected a
member of the Presidium of the Artists' Union of the Armenian SSR.
Clearly, he has now been accepted as one of Armenia's own within the
Soviet system. Before the age of 30 he is decorated with the Badge of
Honor at the celebration of the Decade of Art and Literature of the
Armenian SSR held in Moscow. Meanwhile, he is also gathering gold
medals. The saccharine, happy oil on canvas of fishermen, "On the
Shores of Lake Sevan," wins a gold medal in Moscow; the canvas
"Anahit" wins one in Yerevan.
Another medal come from abroad (Belgium, gold) and still another
from the Academy of Fine Arts of the USSR (Moscow, silver) for his
illustrations of the Khachatur Abovian novel, "Wounds of Armenia."
It is at this point that he is permitted to leave the USSR with a
group of Russian artists for the tour of Albania where we started
earlier at the Academia Gallery.
He apparently behaved well, for two years later we find him in
Paris, and upon returning exhibiting his French impressions in Moscow
where they are well received. He now sports the title "Honored Artist
of the Armenian SSR." Another two years and the tour of Italy behind
him, we find him elected to the Presidium of the Union of Artists of
the USSR. He is now in the top ranks of the Soviet art scene.
He will continue to work almost exclusively in narrative art as an
illustrator of Armenian literature, in time illuminating Avetik
Isahakian's Fables and Gevorg Emin's The Dance of Sassoon. The Dance
includes one of his most beautiful illuminations, a group dance alive
with color, rhythm, and music.
But before all that he begins to work on the beautifully apt and
sensitively rendered illustrations for Paruir Sevak's poem The
Ever-Tolling Bell Tower, published to acclaim in 1965. The acclaim he
receives, including the gold medal in Moscow, even though he has been
cautioned by the commissariat that he has included too many priests
and still keeps them in the illustrations anyway, becomes a major
turning point in his life.
* A clue in an implied halo
He becomes self-assured enough to permit himself to be elected a
member of the Religious and Architectural Council of the Holy See in
Etchmiadzin. Later he will accompany the Catholicos of All Armenians,
Vazgen I, on a tour of Jerusalem.
In the series of The Ever-Tolling Bell Tower illustrations, there is
a subtle clue to Khanjian's religious outlook. We are at the seat of
the catholicos and the inimitable young Gomidas has been brought in to
sing and be judged. It is a decisive moment. In the long room the
white-bearded catholicos is deep in thought, his left hand cupped to
his ear the better to hear the singing Gomidas. Three of his seated
acolytes who must comment on the performance are individual studies in
apt attention. Beside the boy, standing upright, is the young cleric
who has brought him, beaming with pride.
The clue is in the light through the doorframe. It is only directly
on Gomidas. I see it as an implied halo. It adds an additional
dimension to the genius of Gomidas and to the light and dark of the
moment.
The Ever-Tolling Bell Tower recounts the life and death of the
composer Gomidas at the same time that it is a recounting of the
Armenian Genocide. In the illustrations of the book there is a
celebration of Armenian folk life beyond the music. The composer is
usually seen leaning against a wall or a tree, listening, notebook in
hand, but within the full scene there is also a vigorous folk life and
folk art. This folk life seen in the musical instruments and the dance
is also in the clothing and the implements. The Genocide that murdered
the dancers and attempted to silence the music has also cut off the
hands of the spinners and the cobblers and the carvers and the other
craftspeople, striking an almost fatal blow at the very heart of
Armenian folk culture. It is this enormous and profound loss even
beyond the music that confronts Khanjian as an Armenian and an artist.
There is a connection between his manifest interest in the diverse
folk culture he witnessed and expressed in his tour of Albania and a
strongly aroused interest in preserving and reviving Armenian folk
culture after the Genocide. He will show a full commitment to the
revival of Armenian arts and crafts in the rest of his life.
He designs the book Armenian Churches (1970). He follows up by
designing a book on Armenian religious stone art, Khachkars. In 1975
he is elected a deputy to the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR and
becomes a member of the Presidium.
This is the same year that he goes to Mexico. It is on this journey
he draws the dark interior of the church in which we discover our own
image. It is only now that we face the implied question in the
painting: What do you believe? Could he have also been asking it of
himself?
We will find more of the full answer to this question when Khanjian
decides, upon his return, to go to Etchmiadzin. Meanwhile, however, in
the cultural thaw he completes the painting "He Returned," illustrates
Isahakian's At the Sun, and finishes the illustrations of the book
Western Armenian Poetry, while incidentally he is awarded the Red
Labor Flag. He is also elected to the State Prize Awarding Committee
of the USSR.
In Mexico he had encountered the wall paintings of the great
muralist D. Siqueiros, a favorite of the Mexican people and he
dedicates the publication of his Mexican impressions to the memory of
Siqueiros under the title "Where Are You, Son of the Lord?"
He will continue to tour the world, France and Italy again,
Portugal, Belgium and Holland, Australia, New Zealand, Japan. He will
go to Canada. He will also go to Etchmiadzin.
* Restoring Etchmiadzin
For many years after the annexation of Armenia to the Soviet Union,
the newly and grandly built residential palace of the catholicos at
Etchmiadzin was commandeered and occupied by the Soviet Army as a
local headquarters and as a billet for troops. Only after Stalin's
death and the subsequent thaw was the residence of the catholicos
returned to the church. By this time the palace as well as the
cathedral and the grounds were in disrepair.
Khanjian was asked by Vazgen I to help in the restoration, redesign,
and refurbishing of the interior of the residence. In the grand
reception room, the elegantly tasteful simplicity of the fireplaces,
the stonework and woodwork follow his designs. He also created the
artwork for the great wall tapestries for the residence that were
woven in France, the Vardanank and the Armenian Alphabet tapestries.
The Vardanank is an especially interesting treatment. It commemorates
the epic 451 battle of Vardan Mamikonian for the Christian and
national integrity of Armenia, but not as an old story. It is the
story of the continuing battle against every variety of darkness to
this moment. Among the arrayed warriors he painted outstanding
cultural figures over the subsequent span of Armenia's continued
contribution to civilized existence and the struggle for its place in
the world. It is a tribute to what has proven an indomitable Armenian
spirit.
In the last years of his life Grigor Khanjian, recalling Siqueiros,
turned to rendering his tapesties into murals in Yerevan. He worked on
a ladder on huge panels on the walls of the first station in the
Cascades. He completed the Vardanank and the Alphabet, leaving out a
few of the angels.
Going over to Etchmiadzin, in the cathedral to the deep right corner
as you enter there is a set of rooms with the treasures of the church
and deacons who will serve as guides. One of the knowledgeable deacons
was asked where the Khanjian tapestries are. He indicated the
residence of the catholicos, but, he said, "Khanjian is also here.
Look to the painting at the main altar."
The Cathedral at Etchmiadzin is not a humble church in Mexico. The
impenetrable darkness Khanjian painted there is now illuminated at
Etchmiadzin by Khanjian's painting of the Madonna and Child.
So, we have come full circle. What Khanjian believed in all along is
in prayer and in Armenia.
* Postscript
Khanjian in 1989 was elected a deputy to the Supreme Council of the USSR.
He renounced his membership in 1991 as a sign of protest.
In 1992 he created another tapestry, "Mother Armenia Reborn". The
subsequent mural he attempted at the Cascades remained unfinished at
his death.
From 1993 to 1996 he presented the consecrated canvases "Madonna and
Child," "The Crucifixion," and "The Resurrection" to Saint Vartan's
Cathedral in New York.
* * *
Gregory Lima's essay on Ervand Kochar appeared in the March 24 issue
of the Reporter. The author of The Costumes of Armenian Women
(Tehran, 1974), he started Tehran's leading English-language daily,
Kayhan International, in 1959. He lives in Patterson, N.Y., and
Yerevan.
************************************ ***************************************
8. Music: Nazo is the voice of an urban generation
* Armenian Rapper tells it like it is
by Paul Chaderjian
Long after disco was dead and Rock & Roll was slowly fading off the
MTV pop charts, 10-year-old Nazaret "Nazo" Aslanian used to amaze his
sister by his uncanny ability to sing the lyrics of TV show theme
songs like "Diff'rent Strokes," even after just hearing them a few
times. "I'd hear it a couple of times, and I could just do it," he
says. "I don't know how."
Then came the Rodney King beating. The L.A. Riots. Fear that Western
civilization was coming to an end. MC this and MC that were speaking
up. White boys were singing hip hop heard on underground radio
stations. Soon KISS-FM and Power 106 were spinning songs that
expressed the angst of urban America, songs professing to "fight the
power."
"I grew up on rap," says 24-year-old Nazo. "I grew up on Tupac. The
first CD I ever bought was Warren G, the G-Funk Era in 1993, 14 years
ago. Dr. Dre and Snoop were around also, and I've been listening to a
lot of rap ever since."
The King of Pop and the Material Girl had been unseated by a coup,
underground music of the Black ghetto taking over as the predominant
voice of a new generation. The Stones had grown old, John Lennon was
dead, the Boss was divorcing his wife and his band, and the children
and grandchildren of Baby Boomers were buying more CDs than their
folks.
"I knew how to rap, even before I knew I could do it consciously,"
says Nazo. "I would listen to music, and I would pick up the words. I
would be able to rap entire Tupac songs, perfectly."
Out were Metallica, REM, and Guns and Roses and in were Tupac
Shakur, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Janet Jackson, Dr. Dre, Paula Abdul,
Ludacris, and even MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice. Topping the pop charts
and changing the culture of what was cool in America were the rap
lyrics on the lips of school kids from the east to the west.
"Sometimes, I'd be in the car and a song would start," says Nazo,
the Armenian rapper. "I would start rapping with it, and I'd turn the
volume off and keep rapping for a bit. I'd turn the volume on, and I'd
be right on the track."
Hip hop was cool. Rap was hot. And young Nazo was using his keen
memory to sing along the masters on the radio without missing a beat
or forgetting a word. Writing rap was also something that came
naturally to Nazo; he'd been driven by the muses of writing as a
teenager.
"I've been writing poetry since I was a kid," he says. "When I was
13 or 14, I'd write poems for the girls, nice stuff. It's pretty
funny, but I started developing the skills to rhyme and make sense and
all that stuff."
Then came college, the University of California at Irvine, where
Nazo studied computer science and met two friends with whom he's been
collaborating ever since - Kris Palyan and Taron Elizarian (AKA Taron
and Kris P).
* UC Irvine
"When I was a kid, I liked playing video games," say Nazo. We're in
his North Hollywood studio, where he records and produces his music.
"I wanted to make video games, and that's what I wanted to study."
After graduating from the University of California, Nazo found a job
in Orange County in the information technologies sector and still
continues that profession today. "Learning computers has helped me,"
he says. "I learned how to edit my own music, so I don't have to pay
an engineer an hourly fee of hundreds of dollars. It's been very
beneficial for me in terms of music."
While studying computer science, it was Taron who told Nazo, "Bro,
when you sing the songs, other people's song, it's as if you wrote
them." Taron told Nazo that he wanted to produce some beats and asked
Nazo to write the lyrics.
"So I tried," says Nazo, "and eventually, I started to write music.
That was maybe in my sophomore year in college, and I wrote two or
three songs that year."
Taron, Kris and Nazo decided to call themselves "Entity," and they
even recorded one of Nazo's early songs called "Nouns and Verbs" in
their college apartment.
"It was me playing with vocabulary, flipping rhymes, like
complicated, composition comes to me kinetically," he raps. "So I
forward all my findings with finesse phonetically."
Nazo performed a few of his songs in clubs, developing his lyrics
while Kris and Taron developed the beats, developing friendships with
rappers in the black culture.
"After a certain point," he says, "you start comparing your music to
what's out, and you compare your music to what other people are
putting out and what you hear on the radio."
That comparison gave the three friends the confidence they needed to
put their material out for public consumption. "We put together a demo
to see how people react," says Nazo. "We are trying to get management,
trying to get to people in high places, see if I can get on the radio.
That's the current push, and it's hard. It's like a start-up company,
and you're the product. It's never-ending."
* The creative process
Nazo says creating rap music is an interactive process with Kris and
Taron "They create a lot of beats," he says. "I'll go through and say,
'yo, I like this one, I can make a song on this one. And I write my
song. Then I show it to them and see what they think. With choruses,
I'll work with Kris a lot. He's very good with melodies and Taron is
amazing with the drums and sequencing."
Nazo's demo reel is called "Demo of the Year." Why? Because the
12-song presentation shows several different styles of music. "It
shows serious, lyrical, commercial," he says. "It's all these
different styles I'm putting together basically, and I feel like it's
put together thoroughly. It's real. It's not a joke. To me, it's
tight, so that's why I gave it that title. That's what I feel."
"Demo of the Year" is rap. On the album are political rap songs, a
reggae rap song, and even a comedy rap song called "Zankou Chicken."
"There's a funny song, where I talk about Zankou Chicken, which is
like a food chain around here in L.A.," says Nazo. "I'm actually
trying to do something with that song. I'm trying to get the owner to
sell that song as a single in his stores. It's like a different
approach to marketing music too. I feel like if he agrees to it, and
I'm in the middle of negotiation, it's a good way to get exposure, and
it also represents our culture."
Nazo says he wrote Zankou Chicken about 18 months ago. He says he
was listening to a hip hop song about Vans, the sneaker maker. That
inspired him into writing about his favorite chicken joint.
"I was driving in my car and thinking, damn man, what are these guys
doing," he says. "I was like, 'Ever since I was a baby I've been
eatin' my chicken with a little bit of rice, put it on the side, man I
even like mixin' / At first I couldn't get enough of my mama's cookin
/ But got tired of it everyday, ha, just like with my ex-girlfriend /
Now I'm out the house free, I started with KFC / Moved onto El Pollo
Loco but homie, it wasn't me."
Nazo says he wrote the song so that he can stand out as an artist.
"Every rapper that comes out around here is like, you know, tough,
really lyrical, powerful with their words, which is really cool," he
says, "but I felt like I need a way for me to stand out. Not every
artist can make a song that you'll like immediately, that'll get stuck
in your head immediately."
Even though he is rapping, says Nazo, his raps aren't just about
repeating lyrics. "I feel like I'm bringing something new and
innovative," he says. "I don't want to remake the same song. I feel
like, to be relevant, you gotta carve your own niche, your own lane,
your own space. So Zankou Chicken is definitely, probably my most
unique song. And that is part of the package in the 'Demo of the
Year.'"
* Nazo, the Armenian
One of the main things that Nazo says he wants to do as an artist,
aside from trying to be commercially successful, is to get
non-Armenians to like Armenians. "We kinda have a bad rap, out here,"
he says, "especially because of the young guys who are rowdy."
Nazo says at the end of the day, hip hop is music from the Black
culture and the ghetto and the poor. "I like the music, and I like the
rawness of it," he says. "It's real, and when it comes out in my music
I'm talking about living in America, that every American can relate
to. In one song I talk about my own culture. I say, "I'm from a people
dispersed, deserted and cursed / what's worse / we work but we're
moving in reverse / It hurts / We're thinking that we're going to be
reimbursed / Berzerk / Dreamin' while we're screamin' fuck the Turks."
After hearing Nazo's song about the Armenia Genocide on the web, one
fan told him, "I didn't know that about you guys, that you guys had a
genocide. It made me like Armenians more."
That statement, says Nazo, made him feel that he had accomplished
something. "Because that's a great thing to hear," he says, "that
something you created made someone like your culture more."
What has surprised Nazo more after performing "Armenia," was
reaction from an Armenian teenager in the suburb of Montebello. "He
told me, 'Bro, after I heard that song, I wanted to learn more about
my culture and my history.' And that's like the greatest thing anyone
has told me in terms of getting reaction from my music."
* His alias
Rapper Nas, says Nazo, debuted in 1994 and is known as one of the most
talented underground rap lyricists. That's why Nazaret couldn't use
his nickname as his stage name.
"We were thinking of different names," he says. "And Kris said,
'profit.' He brought it up. He said, 'why don't you use profit."
Nazo says he immediately thought Kris was suggesting the word
'prophet,' and he told his friend that 'prophet' would come off too
serious. "There was no way I could be in the commercial business of
hip hop with that type of name."
That's when Kris said he was suggesting the word 'profit,' because
of the duality of its sound and meaning.
"That kind of interested me," says Nazo. "It's a name that can mean
a lot of different things. Anyone who lives out here has that
mentality of financial success, profit. So, "I'm a product of my own
environment. But profit also says something about my people. They are
a hard working people. Armenians have been able to go into any society
and rise, and that's because we value education. We stick together and
work hard. So if you look at the word 'profit' that way, it kind of
represents my culture also."
Nazo says one of the definitions of 'profit' is progress and that as
an artist, he is always trying to make progress. "I try to push the
envelope, do something that I haven't done," he says. "People who hear
'profit' might think prophet, p-h-e-t, and I'm not saying, 'I'm a
prophet,' but I do speak the truth. I try to speak what's real to me
and what I feel. So in that sense, it works out. I really like the
name."
I am Armenian, says Nazo, "but I was born in America. I love my
culture, and I love this country, because it's given me the
opportunity to possibly make music and make a living doing it. It's
all here. I just have to put my hustle on and get to that. And that's
Profit."
connect:
www.thatsprofit.com
myspace.com/thatsprofit
* * *
* PROFIT - ARMENIA lyrics
[Intro]
Yo, in case you ain't know (Akon whattup)
I go by the name of Profit
And MY people are from
Armenia, Armenia
Home of the soul survivors of a terrible genocide
(Armenia, Armenia)
So I wanna share with you my people and some of the things we've been through
(Armenia, Armenia)
[Bridge]
So what you know about?
The struggles that my people went through when the Turks planned on
takin us out
Said what you know about?
Seein that brand new mother gettin raped after she saw her baby drown
Said what you know about?
Barely surviving genocide when my family tree was damn near chopped down
Said what you know about?
How they gathered our leaders, cut they heads off left 'em bleeding
on the ground
What you know about?
Havin trouble smiling 'cause they won't admit to what they done
Now what you know about?
Leaving home for America and runnin from corruption...
[Chrous]
Now I heard they got ghettos in Yerevan
Armenia, Armenia
Now I heard they got ghettos in Yerrort Mas
Armenia, Armenia
And it's comin from the devils who tearin down
Armenia, Armenia
So much trouble in the ghettos of Yerevan
Armenia, Armenia
[Verse 1]
I'm from L.A. baby, eyes on the prize
Ears on my peers, yo I wonder where we'll be in 50 years
Or even a hundred, revolutionary war until we won it
If I had the money homie I would fund it
Return our lands to what they were
How the hell did we deserve to be placed in this situation where
nobody's concerned?
But I'll tell you this -
If I just keep feelin sorry for myself then what's gon happen to my kids?
Papa said to his son, that he'll never live to see the day
When we could find a way to finally make Turkey pay
Forever in my heart, it stays
To make sure I won't forget where I'm from, I'm from...
[Short Bridge]
What you know about?
Havin trouble smiling 'cause they won't admit to what they done
Now what you know about?
Leaving home for America and runnin from corruption...
[Chorus]
[Verse 2]
Sometimes I feel hopeless, head down, it's hard to find a way around it
Full of doubt but I'm still climbin this mountain
And drinkin from the fountain of youth
Because the new generation is the foundation
To build a movement
If you tell me that I'm just dreamin, I ain't gon fake it
But a dream will only go as far as you choose to take it
At this point we ain't got nothin to lose, except our essence
My suggestion, yo lets learn from the Jews, and make the best of
What we got with every talent 'till we rise in our societies
And link with others of our kind, no time for silly rivalries
I'm sometimes amazed how one of my brothers
Could have enough hate to hurt another one of my brothers
There's nothin worse homie take it slow, we all in the same boat
And if it sink, then we all have to pay for it
But still I smile through every trial, it makes me proud
To know that I'm from Armenia
[Bridge]
[Chorus]
[Outro]
We were crumbled, crushed
But those of us who was lucky enough to climb up out that struggle
need to carry on the torch for us Armenians as a people.
I'm talking about the new generation, the old generation, everybody.
You know there's some Armenians that don't even know about a genocide?
There's young Armenian minds that have no idea about this, just
growin up living their life.
All the while, we, we're dying out as a race basically.
So how are YOU gonna help stop THAT? Or are you just gonna turn your
back and act like everything is cool?
They're STILL defeating us - America won't admit to it for political
reasons, Turkey's their ally, so it's up to us.
Now you ask me 'Nazo how?' - How did the Jews do it?
How have we been able to go into any society and rise? And become
the doctors, lawyers, accountants?
And I see it happening today in America man which is a beautiful thing,
But we gotta make sure we keep it in our hearts with every move we make.
How can we turn on each other?
That's what I don't get.
We can't let America tear us apart, and money tear us apart.
Life is hard, but so is death! And knowing that we got crushed and
robbed and raped and castrated and enslaved
And basically almost completely destroyed!
And they still won't admit to it, they still won'te let us bury the dead...
Time is killing us slowly and if we don't do nothing about it
And I'm talking about everybody
If we don't do nothing about it, then that's it man we're gone.
Armenia is an ancient people.
(Armenia, Armenia)
(Armenia, Armenia)
* * *
* Zankou Chicken
Ever since I was a baby I've been eatin my chicken
With a little bit of rice, put it on the side, man I even like mixin'
At first I couldn't get enought of my mama's cookin
But got tired of it everyday, ha, just like with my ex-girlfriend.
Now I'm out the house free, I started with KFC
Moved onto El Pollo Loco but homie, it wasn't me.
Gotta love the butter waffles at Roscoes, but something's missin
That's until I found my around to Zankou Chicken.
Got my hand up on a thigh, got my hand up on a breast
Yo it's love at first sight and I even made a mess
People lookin at me funny like "What's wrong with that dude?"
I ain't care, "Leave me alone when I'm eatin my food!"
Kinda heavy but it's good, with garlic it's somethin new
If you lucky they gon' even open up around YOU
Nowadays people checkin for me from the way I'm spittin
So I had to go and do one for Zankou Chicken.
**************************************** ***********************************
9. Art: A conversation with stones
* An exhibition tells the tales of nature
by Betty Panossian-Ter Sargssian
Some women like sewing and stitching. The Armenian painter, sculptor,
and installation artist Heriknaz Galstian is one of them. But she does
her needlework with such natural media as stones, metals, wood,
textiles, and more stones!
An exhibition of conceptual art, sculpture, and installations
titled, "Ancient Gods," which ran through May 31 at the Narekatsi Art
Institute in Yerevan, exposed her collection of stone-art crafts. The
artwork sang about the harmony they had with nature and spoke of a
woman's enthusiasm and passion to do patchwork with stones.
* Stone messages
To Heriknaz Galstian, stones and other natural media are not simply
objects of inspiration. They have a much important meaning, that of
transmitting messages to their audience. "The issue is not to stitch
up the materials, but to raise awareness in the people so that they
will not destroy nature and our culture," says the artist.
Hrovartak (Manifesto) is a model for this mission. It is a
naturalistic open letter, in which a dead tree tells the tale of the
wiped-out forest. Pieces of trunk crust are sewed up to form the
message board, where the artist has painted in soothing color a Tree
of Life (Genats dzar), and an Armenian symbol of life.
When looked at closely, the bark has its natural rough bumps on it,
which appear to be the letters of nature's mysterious language. "And I
realized that the trees are trying to tell us something," Heriknaz
Galstian says. It is with her stitches that she tries to restore that
message and bring it into the public.
Another piece mingling natural and cultural heritages is the stone
calendar. Its inspiration came from a blurred black-and-white photo of
the sun calendar published in a Soviet-era textbooks. The textbook
referred to it as a most ancient calendar, at the same time mentioning
that the calendar showed the months and days of the solar year. "It is
an important, but forgotten aspect of our cultural richness, and I
decided we should protect it and save it from neglect." The artist
stitched back the calendar from being lost in time and memory.
One wall of the walls of the exhibition room was occupied by hmayils
(charms and amulets), meant to safeguard souls and keep evil spirits
away. "They keep the evil eye (char achk) away in such an efficient
way. Hang them on your doorstep and the evil eye will take a direct
hit," laughs Heriknaz.
Very decorative in form, these hmayils are small stones, tufa and
pumice, carved into folkloric shapes and images, such as pomegranates
and farm animals.
Heriknaz says the hmayils began as a family gift. "I made the very
first stone Hmayil for my nephew, and used his horoscope sign,
Taurus."
Much of the work on exhibit may leave the impression of being
decorative objects, crafts, and artifacts at first glance. Only after
considering them for some time does one see their uniqueness and
meaning.
Heriknaz Galstian has a classical fine-arts education. In some of
the first of her more than 40 exhibitions she showed classical
paintings and sculpture, but over time Galstian has established
herself in naturalistic conceptual art. "Archaic art is the one
nearest to nature, has no conflicts with it," she thinks. She does not
try to conquer nature, though, but to accentuate it, be a medium for
its messages, and "these objects and installations are a medium
through which I can express the messages."
* Middle-aged woman picking stones
Although the stones in the works of Heriknaz seem to have been picked
from nature and used as they are after a quick polish, none of them is
being used in its raw form. They are carefully selected during
excursions in nature or a visit to a stone quarry. The artist's eyes
look for stones everywhere; on city sidewalks, in parks, and even in
the courtyards of buildings.
Embroidery and needlework take time and require patience, a quality
that Heriknaz has plenty of. Making holes in the stones with the
simple tools of a sculptor takes a lot of time and energy, and a look
at her hands tells of her toil. "Oh! Look at my hands. I have lost my
fingerprints!" she sighs.
Most of the stones are Armenian tufa, a soft and easy-to-work-with
volcanic stone with light colors, rose, orange, yellow, and even,
blue.
* Ancient gods?
Although the exhibition was officially titled "Ancient Gods," Heriknaz
Galstian was slightly surprised when I mentioned it as the title. "I
am a Christian, and wouldn't name my collection after ancient gods,
especially when we have a seraph here," Heriknaz told me with a smile,
pointing to an angel in the corner.
"Ah! These stones tell so much to me. We talk all the time," she says.
In order to obtain the thin stone tiles that serve the raw material
for most of her work, Heriknaz saws up the stones with a handsaw. "As
I open them with my saw (you see, I have opened layers that had been
closed for millions of years), a silent conversation flows between
us."
With that she turns to look at one of her works. Her look is tender
and loving, and one could see that their conversation was still going
on.
*************************************** ************************************
10. Film: Pomegranate features universal characters who happen to be Armenian
* Producer Anahid Nazarian proudly recalls someone in Italy telling
her, I have never heard of Armenians but I know that family.
by Tania Ketenjian
NAPA,Calif. - It's amazing how much can come across within an hour and
a half of a film, how many conceptions, or misconceptions, what risks
can be taken, and the depth to which a story can be told. That is what
is so potent in the film Pomegranate. Much like the fruit itself, it
is full of many stories within the contained space of a film. As
producer and writer Anahid Nazarian reflects, "film is the most
powerful medium because it combines music, writing, images,
photography, acting. It's the blend of every art and discipline. It
has the power of all of those combined." And it's true. Within a
gesture or a sound, so much comes across and the layers of an idea can
be revealed in a split second.
Pomegranate is a road-trip movie. "Originally it was going to be a
road trip across the U.S. but we realized we couldn't do that so we
made it a road trip across L.A." The premise of the story is this: Ara
and Jack were cousins and best friends in Beirut, but Jack left Beirut
17 years ago and came to America. In the film, Ara has come to L.A. to
reunite with Jack and his family that emigrated here. After leaving
Beirut, and suffering a sense of distance and conflict with family,
Jack has turned away from his relatives. But Ara brings him back to
them and in so doing brings Jack closer to himself. The film raises
all kinds of questions and seeming taboos within Armenian culture -
issues around family and loss, culture and heritage, marriage and sex,
poetry, love - charged issues that many Armenians seem to have a clear
moral stance on. But as Anahid says, "We hate to admit it but
Armenians are like everybody else. We all go through these
experiences. Since Armenians don't get much exposure, we always want
to be seen through a glowing lens so bringing these issues up was a
challenge. That's why we did it in a humorous way, in a charming way.
That's why the story is endearing." Plus she adds that a film cannot
be fun or dramatic without some conflict. It needs both good and bad.
A movie such as this one is about life and it would be unrealistic to
not include both the triumphs and the tragedies.
* Family values
Because of this sense of realness, by the end of the film, you feel
quite tied to the characters - Ara, the alcohol-drinking priest from
Lebanon who plays the oud and craves an egg McMuffin; Jack, who makes
pornographic films and forgets his girlfriend's birthday; Aunt Sophia,
the mature escort who accepts jewelry from older men and has a strong
opinion about marriage; and of course Grandpa, a cigar-smoking,
gambling dreamer who recites poetry and believes in love, at all
costs. Anahid created these characters but she didn't necessarily
relate to them. "I didn't relate to any one specific charater," Anahid
said, "but the best compliment I have received on the film was from
someone in Italy. It won a great prize there and someone came to me
and said, I have never heard of Armenians but I know that family."
Somehow the viewer relates to each person in some way because they
each speak to a part of us.
That is the inherent power of film - its ability to cross over
cultures and reach a common ground, instilling a collective experience
and connecting all the viewers. When it was shown in Napa, California,
last Friday, the theater was nearly full; almost 400 people were there
to see Pomegranate, an independent, Armenian film. Looking around the
room didn't offer the same feeling that most Armenian events do - lots
of hushed conversation in Armenian, brown-haired, brown-eyed,
traditionally dressed men and women. Because of the surprisingly small
number of Armenians in the audience, the experience was a poignant
one; it proved that Pomegranate could reach so many different people.
They were laughing; they understood the cultural implications; and, in
the end, they were fascinated by Armenians' presence in America today.
For Anahid, affecting people in this way makes the filmmaking process
all worth it. "I can do whatever I want in a closet but when you're
making a film, you have to think of the audience. If the audience
likes it, then it's very rewarding. Making a film is so hard. Finally
when you show it, that's the first time you say to yourself you know
it was worth it."
* On Coppola's team
Anahid Nazarian has worked in film her entire professional life and
she has worked with one of the most important directors of the 20th
century, Francis Ford Coppola. She has traveled around the world,
immersed herself in Coppola's films, essentially living the life of
the film he was making year after year. She just came back from
Bulgaria and is on her way to Buenos Aires. Needless to say, she has
had an exciting and full life so far. But none of this could have
prepared her for the rigors of producing an independent movie. "When
you work on a big-budget film, there is a staff of nearly 80 people
and everyone has their particular job. There's very little crossover.
But when you're making an independent film, you have to do everything
yourself. I learned so much making this film, and I made many
mistakes." Two of the most important things she learned: "Never hire
someone just based on their resume and not their character, and never
use your own money."
In the end, however, with its challenges and the hard work it
entailed, making Pomegranate offered Anahid a sense of pride. It was a
totally personal effort, a film that came from her heart, and with a
small staff and a little money, she made it happen. It would have been
easy to give up, to let the project go, but they all stuck through it:
Kraig Kuzirian the director, Anahid Nazarian the producer, and all the
actors. Sometimes it's worth the challenge because the success is that
much sweeter.
Pomegranate will have a run at a few more festivals over the next
months and will soon be released on DVD.
******************************************** *******************************
11. Books: Monte Melkonian: From small-town kid to legendary martyr
* June 12 is the 14th anniversay of Monte Melkonian's death
Book review by Paul Chaderjian
By any account, the enigmatic genius, scholar, political activist,
soldier, and freedom fighter Monte Melkonian led a short but
extraordinary life. In My Brother's Road, which will be released in
paperback in August, Monte's brother Markar, with the help of Monte's
widow Seta, chronicles one Californian's journey from small town kid
to legendary martyr.
Monte's modern-day epic begins in 1969, when the Melkonians visit
their maternal grandmother's ancestral village in Western Armenia,
some 55 years after the Genocide. At the impressionable age of 11,
Monte sees his grandmother's birthplace, watches the Turks who have
taken up residence in the village, notices that the Armenian Church
has become a Turkish movie theater, and ponders about the outlines
left when crosses were chiseled off doors.
His people had disappeared from the village and the region, millions
of Armenians had evaporated from the face of the planet, and Turkey
still denied it had done anything wrong. This great riddle and his
family's visit to the old country shape Monte's eventual mission to
seek justice for the crimes against his people.
Monte's humanitarian concern develops further at Mt. Whitney High
School in Visalia, California. In 1973 at the age of 15, Monte - the
"mentally gifted minor" bored with his high school courses - is
invited to spend three months in Japan as a sister-city representative
from Visalia to Miki City, near Osaka.
After the visit, Monte decides to stay with some friends in Japan,
to earn money teaching English and then to travel through Southeast
Asia on his own. These travels raise his awareness of peoples'
struggles for self-determination and independence.
During his studies at UC Berkeley, Monte becomes feverish about
righting the wrongs done to Armenians. He decides to bypass doctoral
studies at Oxford and commits himself selflessly to the Armenian
independence movement in the early 1980s.
Monte's mission for justice takes him to the suburbs of Beirut, to
Tehran, and to Paris, where his activities eventually land him in a
European jail cell. These chapters of his life read like a fictional
Hollywood account of a hero's or antihero's intriguing involvement
with secret armies, assassination plots, and lessons learned to make
possible his victories on the battlefield of Karabakh at the end of
his life.
When Perestroika and Glastnost present the opportunity for Monte's
people to declare their independence from the USSR, the modern-day
freedom fighter's focus shifts from Western Armenia to Karabakh, where
Armenians are the victims of barbaric pogroms and Armenian children
are burned on kitchen stoves, reminiscent of the atrocities suffered
by his grandmother's family and others like them during the Armenian
Genocide of 1915.
During the early 1990s, when Armenians are cold and hungry, facing
an economic and energy blockade, Monte and others like him from the
diaspora reach back to the homeland from all obscure corners of the
world. The sons and daughters of the diaspora, the grandchildren of
Genocide survivors return to their ancestral homeland to help turn
their people from victims to victors.
My Brother's Road is an intriguing look into the psychology of a man
who left "the good life" behind in the bountiful San Joaquin Valley of
Central California to stand up for those oppressed overseas. It is
both an educational and historical atlas of the road traveled not just
by one man but by a people struggling for cultural preservation and
freedom near the end of the 20th century.
connect:
mybrothersroad.com
melkonian.or g
amazon.com
barnesandnoble.com
***************** ************************************************** ********
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