Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Sept. 12, 2015)

Easy Doesn’t Do It

Some problems are so complex that you have to be highly intelligent and well informed just to be undecided about them.

… Laurence J. Peter

A Toast

Here’s to my psychiatrist. He finds you cracked and leaves you broke.

An Encouraging Rejection

In 1847, Charlotte Brontë (using the name Currer Bell) submitted the manuscript of The Professor to the publisher Smith, Elder. The firm’s letter of rejection actually encouraged the author. It discussed the book’s merits and demerits so courteously, so considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so enlightened, that this very refusal cheered the author better than a vulgarly expressed acceptance would have done. Later that same year Smith, Elder published Jane Eyre.

Armenian Proverb

He is looking for the donkey while sitting on it.

From My Persian Dictionary

Kalyán; water-pipe (smoking)

Kalyon:    “        “          “

Nárgílah:   “        “          “

´Arzú-mand: keen (sharp)

Bán: keeper

Chi:     “

The Long and the Short of It

Edo: Did you hear my last speech?

Bedo: I certainly hope so.

What’s in a Name?

Shakhkanian: Persian and Turkish in derivation, identified as a royal appellation, shakh is defined as king, and kan as blood; thus, of royal blood.

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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