Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (Dec. 15, 2012)

To a Blockhead

You beat your pate, and fancy wit will come;

Knock as you please, there’s nobody at home.

… Alexander Pope

If Only It Were So

Heaven is getting the chance to live your life over again, but without the mistakes.

Play on Words

To an existentialist pessimist a cymbal is only a symbol; and if he has a lisp, it’s only a thimble.

Concentration

A young aspiring alchemist approached an older and more experienced one to ask him if he would teach him the art of transmuting lead into gold. “Gladly,” said the older man, “but when you recite the special incantation that I will teach you, you must not think of a pink elephant.”

From the Trivia File

Magliabechi: The greatest bookworm that ever lived. He devoured books, and never forgot anything he had read. He had so exact a memory, that he could tell the precise place and shelf of a book, as well as the volume and page of any passage required. He was the librarian of the great-duke Cosmo III. His usual dinner was three hard-boiled eggs and a draught of water.

Hands Off

Edo: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Bedo: Who coined that phrase?

Edo: The doctor’s wife.

What’s in a Name?

Chiftjian: Turkish in derivation, identified as an occupation, chiftji is defined as a ploughman, farmer.

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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
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• Uncle Garabed’s Notebook (July 22, 2017) - July 22, 2017