Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Sept. 10, 2016)

A Sly Put Down

The original Greek is of great use in elucidating Browning’s translation of the Agamemnon.

… Robert Yelverton Tyrrell

The American Way

The typical successful American businessman was born in the country, where he worked diligently so he could live in the city, where he worked relentlessly so he could live in the country.

Compensation

The bald-headed man may be ridiculed but he’s the first in the group to know when it starts to rain.

One Englishman’s View of Shakespeare

All the poets are indebted—more or less—to those who have gone before them; even Homer’s originality has been questioned, and Virgil owes almost as much to Theocritus, in his Pastorals, as to Homer, in his Heroics. And if our own countryman, Milton, has soared above both Homer and Virgil, it is because he has stolen some feathers from their wings. But Shakespeare stands alone. His want of erudition was a most happy and productive ignorance; it forced him back upon his own resources, which were exhaustless. If his literary qualifications made it impossible for him to borrow from the ancients, he was more than repaid by the powers of his invention, which made borrowing unnecessary. In all the ebbings and the flowings of his genius, in his storms no less than in his calms, he is as completely separated from all other poets as the Caspian from all other seas. But he abounds with so many axioms applicable to all the circumstances, situations, and varieties of life, that they are no longer the property of the poet, but of the world; all apply, but none dare appropriate them. And, like anchors, they are secure from thieves by reason of their weight.

Armenian Proverb

Gladness makes the hair grow; fretfulness, the nails.

What’s in a Name?

Khazabashian: Arabic and Turkish in derivation, khaz is defined as silk, and bash as head; therefore, master or head silk worker or merchant.

• Bio
• Latest Posts

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