Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Feb. 21, 2015)

Maxim

How can we expect someone else to keep our secret if we cannot keep it ourselves?

… La Rochefoucauld

Armenian Proverb

There are many things that, until you learn them, you cannot do; there are also things that, until you do them, you cannot learn.

Daffy-nition

Mushroom: The place where huskies are trained to pull dog sleds.

The Proportionate Body

Polycletos, the ancient Greek sculptor, drew up a canon of the proportions of several parts of the human body, as in, twice round the thumb is once round the wrist; twice round the wrist is once round the neck; twice round the neck is once round the waist; once round the fist is the length of the foot; the 2 arms extended is the height of the body; 6 times the length of the foot, or 18 thumbs, is also the height of the body. Again, the thumb, the longest toe, and the nose should all be of the same length. The index finger should measure the breadth of the hand and the foot, and twice the breadth should give the length. The hand, the foot, and the face should all be the same length. The nose should be one-third of the face; and, of course, the thumbs should be one-third the length of the hand. Gerard de Lairesse has given the exact measurements of every part of the human figure, according to the famous statues of “Antinous,” “Apollo Belvedere,” “Hercules,” and “Venus de Medici.”

Conscience

If we had to personally kill the creatures that we eat, we’d probably become vegetarians.

Personal Choice

The cannibal rejects vegetarianism in favor of humanitarianism.

What’s in a Name?

Dilmanchian: Turkish in derivation, identified as an occupation, dilmanch is a variant of dilmach, which is defined as interpreter, dragoman, and guide.

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CK Garabed

Weekly Columnist

C.K. Garabed (a.k.a. Charles Kasbarian) has been active in the Armenian Church and Armenian community organizations all his life. As a writer and editor, he has been a keen observer of, and outspoken commentator on, political and social matters affecting Armenian Americans. He has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Reporter and the AGBU Literary Quarterly, “ARARAT.” For the last 30 years, Garabed has been a regular contributor to the Armenian Weekly. He produces a weekly column called “Uncle Garabed's Notebook,” in which he presents an assortment of tales, anecdotes, poems, riddles, and trivia; for the past 10 years, each column has contained a deconstruction of an Armenian surname. He believes his greatest accomplishment in life, and his contribution to the Armenian nation, has been the espousing of Aghavni, and the begetting of Antranig and Lucine.

Latest posts by CK Garabed (see all)

• A Reminiscence: John Najarian - February 19, 2020
• Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Aug. 5, 2017) - August 7, 2017
• Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (July 22, 2017) - July 22, 2017