Yegparian: Finer on the Five

Thurs., April 22nd, I was called, literally minutes before it was to start, to be told that Burbank’s Homenetmen was hosting a lecture about Soghomon Tehlirian by Stephan Simonian, M.D. Feeling a bit lazy, I opted for the 4-minute drive over the 14-minute one to Glendale, where part of that city’s now-annual commemorative programs included a lecture on ending modern slavery. My choice turned out to be a good one. It was a very interesting presentation, attended by 32 people, because it took the testimony from Tehlirian’s trial, both his and the psychologists’, and used it demonstrate that the he was suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The down side was that the speaker spent an inordinate amount of time presenting the evolution of the medical community’s understanding of PTSD and everything was done bilingually (i.e. we got to hear the lecture twice in one sitting). I thought those days were gone…

Friday night, I managed to pop in at two gatherings, after missing the annual LA City commemoration (I was distracted by work and completely forgot as the whole event unfolded just above me on the 3rd and 27th floors of city hall). This night provided evidence of a convergence of thought by many of the organizers of April 24th activities in the LA basin. Here’s a list of others I did not attend: the newly formed Armenian Church parish in North Hollywood was holding a memorial service; the traditional vigil at the Montebello monument where the Element band was to play (it would’ve been interesting to see if that impacted turnout since I have been to several iterations of that event); Glendale’s annual gathering, relegated to the smaller Alex Theatre (since last year as I recall) rather than the Civic Auditorium, a response to lower-than-expected turnouts, I suspect; and a lecture at the Merdinian School organized by the ARPA Institute on “Dollar Diplomacy and the Armenian Genocide.” This timing makes sense in that it allows everyone to attend events locally on the eve, while going to bigger events on the day of. Let’s hope this is the long-term direction because there was one seemingly avoidable conflict—Pasadena had scheduled two back-to-back gatherings at its City Hall on the morning of April 24 when the march in Hollywood was taking place.