MEME Concert Day

 

Wanees Zarour and Firas Zreik

This afternoon, early evening, the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble of the University of Chicago (MEME) is giving the first concert of the 2025-26: A Salute to Ziad Rahbani.  We are featuring nine of his compositions.  We have a guest artist with us, the gifted kanun player, Firas Zreik.  Our vocalists are Karl El Sokhn and Sham Abyad.

We have worked hard for this concert to master the difficult pieces selected by our director Wanees Zarour.  The lines each instrumental group must play are a wee bit challenging but simply require practice.  The difficulty lies in bringing it all together and playing precisely with everyone hitting their marks to fully bring to life the jazzy fusion pieces as Rahbani composed them.  I do believe after seven weekly practices and a dress rehearsal, we are ready.

MEME has really evolved since I first heard the orchestra in a concert I attended in 2008 and even more so since I joined them in 2014.   For the concert today, there will be 85 of us on stage:  50 musicians and a choir of 35.  That is about two or three times the size of the ensemble when I first joined it. 

While the growth of the ensemble is impressive, the musicianship is probably at the highest level as well.  The new musicians that join MEME are simply more talented and experienced.  This is exemplified by the quality of our ‘first reads’ which is basically the first time we play a piece at a practice.  When I first joined, our first reads basically indicated how much we would need to practice the piece before it was performance ready.  Now, I am amazed at how much better our first reads are.  For simpler pieces, our first reads are practically concert ready.  For more challenging pieces, our first reads are much closer to being concert ready than we once were. 

More and more at practices, I will hear something truly impressive enough from somewhere in the ensemble that I turn my head to look.  I find myself marveling at a bass run from Cee Mikhail, a beautifully executed enhancement from our cellos, percussion, or woodwind sections.  Our ney player, Pan Fayang, is amazing.  When Ronnie Malley plays a taksim, it is brilliant. if it is in nahawand, it is steller.  More recently, we have added a brass section which is not typical in Middle Eastern music.  But, dang, they are good and give Maestro Wanees another wonderful color on his arrangement pallet.  I have seen folks improve dramatically as they join us and want to play Middle Eastern instruments.  The growth of our choir is equally impressive and is invaluable in all of the genres we tackle, especially for classical Arab and Turkish music.

People come and go in our ensemble.  Whether students or community members, people in MEME come and go… and some come back again.  This is only natural.  Students come to the university and graduate.  Community members move to and away from Chicago.  Members have to drop out due to work or family circumstances.  Yet, the trajectory of growth in numbers and musicality continues.  It is a testimony to Wanees and the culture he has created and which we all buy into and actively support.

The MEME concerts have the best attendance for events in the Department of Music at the University of Chicago.  We regularly fill the 400 seat auditorium at the Reva and David Logan Center for the Performing Arts.  We anticipate the same for tonight’s concert and… we will rock the house.

A Rahbani Primer

 

I have been part of the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble of the University of Chicago (MEME) for 11 years.  I have learned so much about Persian and Arab music that I had minimal knowledge when I first started.  I have even learned a lot more about Turkish music which I naively believed I knew pretty well. 

One thing I know for certain about the music of the region is that I have so much more to learn about the artists, composers, musical theory, folk songs, and classical music of region.  It is a vast knowledge, and I am content with the obvious reality that I cannot know everything

While we have been rehearsing for eight weeks, our 2025-26 season begins with our first concert tomorrow, December 7.  The concert, A Salute to Ziad Rahbani, is a tribute to the famed Lebanese pianist, composer, playwright, and political activist, Ziad Rahbani, the passed away at the age of 69 on July 26, 2025.

The passing of Rahbani is a perfect example of my knowledge gap.  I knew of the Rahbani name and that members of the family were prolific and renowned composers of Lebanese music who wrote many of the classics for the legendary Fairuz.  I knew one of them was married to Fairuz.  If you had asked me their first names, which was married to Fairuz, and which were the notable pieces that became masterpieces, I might have gotten a scant few correct answers.  Case in point, I thought when I heard the news of Ziad’s passing, I assumed he was the husband of Fairuz, when, in fact, he was her son. 

There were three Rahbani brothers.  Assi (1923-1986) who was married to Fairuz, Mansour (1925-2009), and Elias (1938-2021).  They were all composers and lyricists.  When people talk of the Rahbani Brothers, they usually are referring to the partnership of Assi and Mansour who were also authors and playwrights.  The number of musicals they wrote, and presumably, produced is pretty impressive.

Ziad was born on January 1, 1956, in Antelias, Lebanon.  As the son of Assi Rahbani and Nouhad Wadie Haddad (Fairuz), he was a crown prince of the Lebanese art and music world in the days when Beirut was truly the Paris of the Middle East.  As he grew up, he certainly embraced his musical heritage, but also as many of us of his generation, he wanted to find his own voice and own way. 

He was writing significant music at a young age of 17 with a theatrical piece:  Sahriyyeh (The Soirée).  One of first big hits was  Mais el Reem which he wrote in 1978.  His music and political activism was heavily influenced by the Lebanese Civil War which began in 1975.  Per the article in the Syriac Press, Ziad Rahbani, Fierce Satirist and Musical Icon of Lebanon, Dies at 68

…it was his own satirical masterpieces—Film Ameriki Taweel (A Long American Film), Bikhsous el Karameh wal Shaab el ‘Anid (On Dignity and the Stubborn People), and Bennesbeh Labokra Chou? (What About Tomorrow?)—that made him a cult legend. Through them, he turned wartime Beirut into a stage where taxi drivers, waiters, and philosophers exchanged despair, laughter, and sharp political critique in equal measure.

A committed leftist, Rahbani was unapologetically vocal about his anti-sectarianism, disdain for corruption, and admiration for progressive ideals. He criticized both the religious establishment and political elites, including those within his own community, in equal measure. 

Yet it was his music—rich with jazz, funk, classical Arabic maqams, and local folkloric rhythms—that truly broke ground. He didn’t just modernize the Lebanese song; he cracked it open and let the world flood in. His musical arrangements, heavily influenced by jazz legends like Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane, were woven into the fabric of Beirut’s melancholic soul. Tracks like “Ana Mesh Kafer,” “Oummi el Hilweh,” and “Bi Nisbeh La Bukra Shu?” remain anthems of cultural resistance across the Arab world. 

In 1979, Ziad Rahbani married Dalal Karam, and the couple had a son they named Assi, in honor of Ziad’s father, Assi Rahbani. The marriage eventually ended in divorce. Years later, a legal dispute arose regarding the paternity of Assi Jr. In 2004, DNA testing confirmed that Ziad was not the biological father. Following this revelation, Rahbani took legal action to disavow paternity, which resulted in a court ruling that stripped the younger Assi of the Rahbani surname and removed him from the family register. 

Ziad Rahbani was a complicated man and a multifaceted talent.  He was troubled in his personal life and had health issues which took him too soon.  He was a great composer.  I am sorry for the passing of Ziad Rahbani, but I am thankful for this concert which motivated me to learn about this amazing man and gifted artist.

Part 3: Is Quality an Issue Again?

In my time as a professor of operations management in the School of Business and Nonprofit Management at North Park University, I came to realize the lack of a definition of business in all the books I have read and textbooks I have used in courses.  I do believe we all just assumed that everyone simply knew what a business was and what businesses were supposed to do.

I do believe that everyone just assumes that simply a business is an organization with the expressed purpose of making money selling products or services.  This is not wrong.  It clearly puts the focus on making money.  The result of this definition is in the way we value and track business.  Profit is the primary measure with an emphasis of profit in the short term.  With focus on the current quarter and current year, business leaders can easily trade off design and product quality to make their numbers.  They will drive down costs and drive up productivity, which again are what businesses should do.   But when driving down costs and driving up productivity become the primary operations emphasis… well, there is a greater likelihood quality might be compromised.

Deming had a graphic that was a major pillar of his philosophy presented in his book, Out of the Crisis, first published in 1866.  He may have used this graphic in his famous 4-Day Seminars well before the publishing of his seminal book.  He begins with improve quality which will drive down costs and drive up productivity.  This allows the enterprise to capture more market share with better quality sold at lower prices which perpetuates the enterprise.  Deming adds that more and more jobs will be created.  These days that will happen at a slower rate, if at all, because of the advances in technology and, now, the looming promise of AI.

I have certainly used my own rendition of Deming’s graphic, but it does not suffice as a general definition of business.  So, I decided to write one that I use in all my classes.

1. Business is business. It is cut and dry.
2. Provide products and services that customers want, sell these same products at a high volume at a price higher than the cost of goods and production, and, voila, the business is profitable and can thrive and grow.
3. Don’t do this and the opposite happens, the business loses money and will eventually have to cease operations, call it quits. 
4. This is not a one-time deal. Businesses have to do this continually.
5. To make it even more challenging, competitors would love to steal market share and act aggressively to do just that.
6. Markets and the preferences of customers are always changing.
7. So, businesses need to be aware of all this and adapt and innovate their product and service offerings to remain competitive and relevant to their customers.
8. As a result, some businesses expand and grow while others shrink and even go out of business

I have been happy with my definition of business but just noticed that I do not specifically use the word quality nor do I invoke the quality mindset in this definition.  It is assumed in point #7. 

To wrap up this series of posts.  Any company that can offer and innovate product and services that customers and consumer will value and then produce and deliver them in a defect and error should do better than their competitors.  If this becomes part of their culture and the company can excel at it, the company will thrive.  Customers and consumers will know it and become loyal consumers and customers. 

I believe Quality is always the issue.  Companies need to dig deeper to find out what customers and consumers want and design products and services that meet or exceed those needs.  Then, it is Job 1 of operations to deliver and exceed on delivering products and services that meet or exceed customers and consumers in ways that those products or service cause no issues and certainly causes no one to report a problem on the National Consumer Rage Survey.

As has always been the case in the realm of quality management, creating that culture to deliver better products and services is never easy… but it not impossible.

So, yes Quality is always an issue.  The mindset has to be the old Lexus matra, “The relentless pursuit of perfection.”  It is the old Ford mantra, “Do it right the first time.”  It is what Reuben Mark the CEO of Colgate-Palmolive would always say, “getting a little bit better, every day, in every way.”

The tenets of Total Quality Management are as relevant today as they ever were:

• Customer Focus
• Strong Quality Leadership
• All Employee Involvement
• Continuous Improvement
• Fact Based Decision Making

      These principles are evergreen. 

Part 2: Is Quality an Issue Again?

 

On November 28, 2025 this article was published in the Wall Street Journal:  American Consumers are Madder Than Ever.    The article had the following tagline: 

It has never been easier to buy stuff. But dealing with product and service problems has never felt so difficult, consumers say.

The article was about the National Consumer Rage Survey which reported the highest percentage of customers experiencing a product or service problems in their latest survey.

Seventy-seven percent of customers reported experiencing a product or service problem in the previous 12 months, according to the latest National Customer Rage Survey, conducted in February.

That was a new high, surpassing 74% in 2023, when the study was last conducted, and 66% during the height of the pandemic in 2020. Only 32% told researchers they had experienced a problem in 1976, when a similar version of the study was first conducted. 

Businesses claim to take product and service quality seriously.  My general perception is that we have improved in quality as many companies are now measuring defects per million items versus defects per hundred items back when the National Customer Rage Survey began in 1974.  So, why are 77% of the people reporting they have experienced product or service problems in the past year? 

There might be a few ways to explain this.  First, we buy a lot more products than ever before.  Second, many of the products we buy, including electronics, cars, and white goods are more complicated than ever.  They seem more expensive and don’t seem to last as long.  I look at the life expectancy of our HVAC systems, water heaters, and washing machines.  I thought the idea of planned obsolescence was long gone until I began to understand that getting 10-12 years out of these products is often the most one can expect.  Gone are the days of the Maytag repairman being the loneliest man on the planet.  Actually, gone are the days of repairmen.  It is often cheaper to replace items than to repair them.  These are my observations.  They are a bit more than anecdotal but certainly not definitive.

In my own case, I have a school issued Dell laptop and, at home, my own iMac desktop computer.  I bought the iMac when I started teaching at North Park full-time.  It has lasted 11 years nary a problem except that the keyboard and mouse pad go through batteries way faster than I expected.  In that same time period, I am on my fourth laptop.  The first three simply died.  I have to replace my iMac because the processor is so old that it can no longer support operating system, browser, and software upgrades and thus starting to slow down and do glitchy things.

Complexity is certainly and issue.  The products I have spoken of are sophisticated engineering marvels designed to be very power efficient and thus requiring more parts that are more expensive and operating, sometimes, at the upper extremes of the performance curves. 

Another part of the problem with quality these days is the drive to keep prices down.  Taking more and more cost out of products and services can only go so far before the next level of shaving off more cost is at the expense of quality or reliability.  Combine this cost cutting with product complexity, and voila you get an uptick in defects and less reliability i.e. products with shorter lifespans.

The same can apply to service.  Businesses are coaxing if not forcing most customers to interact online when needing services as well.  Talking to human beings is harder than it should be causing frustration if the online systems are not really intuitive.  Case in point, ordering on Amazon so fluid and easy and we don’t recognize until we try to interface with almost any other online shopping or service portal.

In thinking about this, I am not surprised by the findings in the Wall Street Journal article. 

Is Quality an Issue Again?

 

Part 1:  My Background in Quality Management

My career was heavily rooted in Quality and Reliability beginning with my first real job at Ford Motor Company.  In 1976, I started working in the Warranty and Reliabiliity Department of the Body and Electrical Products Engineering division.  My job was to track the one and three month in-service warranty incident rates on several subsystems across all cars and light trucks.  I did rudimentary forecasting by month on these two data sets to upward trends before they become too costly. 

It was a fun and interesting time to work in the auto industry.  It was becoming clear that the Japanese cars were better than ours in some significant ways.  They cost less.  There outer dimensions of their vehicles were smaller than our comparable models but, remarkably, their interior dimensions and cargo dimensions were larger.  They had better fuel economy.  Lastly, their cars had significantly lower defects and higher reliability than ours.  To top it all off, the Japanese, primarily Toyota and Honda, could crank out new models in about two years versus four years for ours. 

It was a crazy time and the management of the Detroit Big Three keep trying harder to do things the way they were used to doing.  Henry Ford himself was fond of saying, “If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got”  The company that he founded had forgotten that bit of wisdom. 

D-day came on June 24, 1980 when NBC aired a segment of their acclaimed documentary series NBC White Paper.  The show that night was called If Japan Can… Why Can’t We?   The gist of the report was that the Japanese was that the Japanese were used methods developed in the US, that we had essentially forgotten about and barely used anymore, to achieve the better designed and higher quality products taking market share away from the US auto makers.  The report hosted by NBC newsman Lloyd Dobbins, introduced us to an American man who, W. Edwards Deming who given much of the credit for teaching the Japanese about Quality Management. 

The next day, everyone at Ford Motor was discussing the show and this fellow Deming that no one had ever heard of.  Ford bought hundreds of copies of the show on and had every department watch it.   Within a few days, Deming, then 80 years old, was at the Ford World Headquarters in Dearborn, MI lecturing the top executives in the company.  With a month, I was at a session in an auditorium at the headquarters listening to a lecture by Deming.  I went because someone in our department had to go but no one else wanted to go.  It was decided to “send the kid.”  I was the kid. 

I had no clue of what Deming was talk about, but it changed the course of my career.  Soon, Quality become Job 1 at Ford and for me as well.  I was looking for another Master’s degree.  By all logic, I should have enrolled in an MBA program but I wanted something more technical.  I stumbled upon an ad for the masters in Operations Research, the science of informed decision making, at Wayne State University.  Two of the primary professors Leonard Lamberson and Kailash Kapur had written the best book of that era on Reliability Engineering and the program included courses on Quality Management.  It was perfect.  While at Wayne, I took a classes from the Math Department on Probability and Statistics to really learn both subjects.  I ended getting an MS in Operations Reserch/Industrial Engineering and an MA in Statistics.  My career was set.  I was part of the Quality Revolution in the US. 

Over the years the auto industry closed the gap with the Japanese though I still believe Toyota and Honda have an edge.  At the beginning defect rates were measure in defects per hundreds in a subsystem to now being measure in defects per million.  I worked on product quality in the auto industry at Ford, Rockwell Automotive, and TRW.  I then moved to the fast moving Consumer Packaged Goods industry and work at Colgate-Palmolive where order fulfillment quality was their biggest issue.  I helped lead an effort that took Colgate from worst in class to best-in-class in Latin America.  

I moved to Supply Chain Management for the tail end of my corporate career but in every job thereafter include my current as a professor at North Park University, I focus my work through the lens of Quality Management, Process Improvement, sound metrics, and team building. It works and the results and legacy speak for themselves.  

Death Cross?

Bitcoin Death Cross - Investopedia

 

I have never really understood cryptocurrency.  It seems fake and built on nothing tangible.  That being said, most other currencies were built on shiny metals which seemed to hold little tangible value other than for jewelry and utensils in days of yore.  They had value because we coveted them over other metals and stones by a wide margin.  In a sense this valuation was fake as well.  The difference between cryptocurrencies and gold backed currencies, when currencies were indeed backed by gold, was you could touch and feel the gold.  Now, we just value the paper and the numbers printed on them.  As for cryptocurrencies, we jumped right to valuing the numbers displayed on computer screens.

No matter what I believe I don’t understand about cryptocurrencies, people have been trading them for fifteen years.  I have yet to trade in that market.  If, in the “woulda shoulda coulda” world of missed investment opportunities, I had bought $542.20 worth of Bitcoin on my 60^th birthday in 2013, I would have 5.54 Bitcoin that would be worth $500,018.55 today.  How do I know this?  There are several Bitcoin calculators available online.  I chose What if I Bought Bitcoin Calculator – By Date (FOMO).  I guess I am not alone the in fantasizing about how much I might have profited if I had bought some Bitcoin back then.  But I didn’t because it seemed fake.  What do I know? 

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have been in the news lately because the market has dropped and dropped significantly.  Per ABC News: 

The election of Trump, who dubbed himself the “first crypto president,” set off a surge in the price of digital assets.

 

Bitcoin climbed 40% in a matter of weeks, surpassing $100,000 for the first time last December. After a dip in the spring, bitcoin rallied to a record high of about $126,270 on Oct. 6.

 

In recent weeks, the price of bitcoin has dropped nearly $40,000 or by about one-third. Still, the price remains more than 25% higher than where it opened trading on Election Day last November.

In mid-November, Bitcoin made a death cross.  It’s 50 day moving average of prices crossed below its 200 day moving average.  A death cross is a major downward (signal) in a market.  

In the same ABC News story, they interviewed Hillary Allen a Professor of Law specializing in cryptocurrency policy at American University.  She noted, “We’ve seen plenty of crypto crashes before.  With something like crypto, the air comes out every now and then.”  The new story summarized her assessment of the volatility as being due to “an absence of fundamental value that would otherwise anchor the price.”  Was she speaking about cryptocurrencies not being rooted in something like… um… I don’t know… a shiny metal?

The truth is that cryptocurrencies are moving toward more regulated markets through several key developments around the globe:

• Comprehensive Regulatory Frameworks: Jurisdictions are implementing dedicated legislation, shifting from a fragmented "regulation by enforcement" approach to clear, unified rules. The European Union's Markets in Crypto-Assets (MiCA) Regulation is a prime example, providing a uniform licensing and operational framework for crypto service providers and stablecoin issuers across all member states.
• Enhanced Financial Crime Controls: Governments worldwide are enforcing stricter Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Know Your Customer (KYC) protocols for crypto exchanges and businesses. Many are implementing the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF) "Travel Rule," which requires Virtual Asset Service Providers (VASPs) to share customer information during transactions, bringing crypto in line with traditional finance standards.
• Integration with Traditional Finance (TradFi): The approval of regulated investment products, such as Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs), signals a major step in bringing crypto assets into the traditional financial system. This provides a clear, regulated channel for institutional and retail investors to gain exposure.
• Stablecoin Scrutiny: Regulators are intensely focused on stablecoins, seeking to mandate that issuers maintain adequate reserves and ensure transparency to safeguard financial stability.

These trends, driven by the industry's growth and international cooperation, aim to balance innovation with critical goals like investor protection, financial stability, and the prevention of illicit activities.

I do believe this move to more regulation is a good thing.

One A Day

https://www.livewell.bayer.com/ 

 

In December of 2020, January of 2021, and again in January of 2022, I wrote and posted a bloggy bit each and every day of those months.  I thought it was more recent but the last time I posted a piece every day of a month was essentially four years ago.

This year, as of the end of November, I have only posted 33 times.  That is a lowly three posts per month.  If I post that average in December, it will be my lowest annual count since 2017.  I attribute this dip in productivity to the lethargy I wrote about in August:  A Lethargic July.  Last night on a flight back from Los Angeles visiting my daughter and her family for Thanksgiving, I was feeling energized and I got the notion to post every day this month. 

To accomplish this, I will have to overcome the lethargy which up until now I have only accomplished for a few days at a time here and there.  I will have to be more disciplined, and I will need to stay off of social media where I lose hours watching reels of all things.  I hate and resent being manipulated by an algorithm, wasting hours, and having nothing to show for it.  I know I am not alone in this addictive behavior. 

So, let’s see what I can do with this brand new month.  I am going to try to produce a post a day.  This is day one.  I have a lot of other must dos at this time of the year the will be vying for my time and attention.  First, I have the end of semester grading and the submitting of grades.  I have a concert this coming Sunday with the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble of the University of Chicago.  There is a practice on Thursday and a dress rehearsal on Saturday all in Hyde Park each of which will consume more than half and day each.  Then there all the prepartions and festivities for the Christmas and New Year holidays.  Posting daily will be a daunting task for which I might have to pre-build an inventory of posts.

A bright spot this year has been on my poetry blog.  I have written 35 poems this year which is the most I have written ever.  I have average 8-9 poems a year since 2009.  If poems are the writing equivalent of reels, it all balances out in some odd way.  I would boost these more on social media, but I am less sure (maybe secure is even a better word) of my skills in this genre.  Here are two poems that the Armenian Weekly published since October.

• Makam Choonim   
• Andon’s Peşrev

I have a list of topics I want to write about and, sadly, several friends that have passed on that I need to write about.  Certainly, the crazy state of this country and the world is good for another half dozen posts.  I want to write about AI and its impact on my own writing and what I am now believing is the best way to use it in the classrooms.

The topics are there, I just need to make sure I carve out the time to write.

A Sweetly Bittersweet Film

 

Originally published in the Armenian Weekly on November 6, 2025 

On October 26, 2025, the Chicago chapter of the Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) launched its AREV Film Series at the Glenview Public Library. The series marks the inaugural initiative of the Kazarian-AGBU/Chicago Armenian Humanities Festival, an ongoing celebration of Armenian heritage and culture in the city. The first film, “My Sweet Land,” is a documentary by filmmaker Sareen Hairabedian that depicts the plight of Artsakh Armenians through the eyes of a coming-of-age boy, Vrej, amid the recent sad history of the Republic of Artsakh.

Hairabedian grew up in Jordan, immersed in a family that celebrated the arts. She moved to the U.S. for her education, earning a Bachelor of Arts in film and media studies at American University. In 2016, she founded her production company, HAI Creative, which collaborates with organizations like HBO, Sesame Workshop and the United Nations Women to produce media focused on social issues.

Since then, Hairabedian has become an award-winning documentary filmmaker known for her intimate, human-driven approach to telling socially conscious stories, often focusing on the unheard and underrepresented.

Many in the diaspora recall the 2008 mass wedding ceremony in Artsakh, which became a powerful symbol of resilience and efforts to repopulate the region. Hairabedian decided to make a documentary exploring how one of those marriages grew into a family. In her research, she interviewed 23 families before settling on Vrej Khachatryan and his family in Martakert. She began living in Armenia and traveled to Artsakh for a week or two at a time. 

The film opens prior to the 2020 war — in which Azerbaijan employed drones and other advanced weaponry, funded by their oil industry, aided by Turkey and mercenaries from Syria — and continues through the fall of Artsakh after the 2023 blockade. As these events unfolded, Hairabedian kept filming, giving the documentary added urgency and poignancy.

We read a bit about the film before going to see it. We were prepared to relive the gut-wrenching feeling we experienced when Artsakh fell.  But rather than focusing solely on tragedy, the film emphasized Armenian traits of endurance and communal spirit — the fate that has helped us survive tragic periods and also to thrive. 

 

Under Hairabedian’s beautiful cinematography and artful editing, the documentary highlights the Armenian spirit in a somber yet dignified way. Vrej’s soliloquy at the end of the film — which Hairabedian said was spontaneous, unscripted and uncoached — makes the film all the more endearing. The history is what it is, but in the midst of it, Hairabedian has produced and gifted us a documentary that is bittersweet, not just devastating. I suppose we could call this the Armenian dichotomy.

Hairabedian began filming the documentary in 2018 or 2019 and concluded in 2024. What dedication and time commitment to gift the world this special film for all Armenians and the world. Our story often seems small and is treated as lesser compared to whatever else is dominating the news. It is only appropriate that Hairabedian’s focus was even smaller — telling the story from the perspective of one boy, the child of one of those 2008 mass-wedding couples.

After the screening, Hairabedian spoke briefly about the film and took questions from the audience of about 60 Chicago Armenians. She was humbled by the generally good reaction and reviews of “My Sweet Land.” Generally good reaction? 

Well, predictably, Azerbaijan has lobbied against the film wherever and whenever it can. Jordan nominated it for an Academy Award for Best International Feature — a category that required a nomination by a country — but Azerbaijan pressured Jordan to withdraw the nomination. The film was due to be shown on April 24th at the UC Berkeley Human Rights Center, but the screening was postponed after Azerbaijani students and the Azerbaijani consulate protested. The film was also dropped from a screening in India due to Azerbaijani pressure. This PR and misinformation campaign constitutes a second front from the Azeris against Armenians. 

Lastly, Hairabedian said that when she showed Vrej the finished film, he told her,“Now, I see why you were filming so much. It is not only my story, but every child’s in Artsakh.”

Indeed, it is.  Every Armenian should see this documentary, which hopefully will air on PBS in the coming year.

Here is the schedule for the rest of the AREV Film Series in January and February. I encourage everyone in Chicago to take advantage of this series:

• Jan. 18, 2026 — “Women in Black,” Director: Gor Kirakosian
• Jan. 25, 2026 — “The Reverse Side of the Medal,” Director: Anna Maxim
• Feb. 1, 2026 — “Amerikatsi,” Director: Michael Goorjian
• Feb. 8, 2026 — “Tezeta,” Director: Aramazt Kalayjian
• Feb. 20, 2026 — “Warrior Saints,” Director: Roger Kupelian

 

 

Sweatshirt Weather

 

 Today was a beautiful fall day.  The sky was blue and painted with wisps of clouds.  The autumn sun shone in a shade of gold we only see in the fall.  The air was crisp, a word we seem to only use in the fall, with the temperatures in the low 50s and a nice breeze.  It was a perfect kind of fall day.  It was the first really nice fall kind of day.  It was sweatshirt weather. 

I did not set out to take a long walk, hike, or bike ride.  There was no plan to smoke a cigar or have lunch outside.  I had a fair amount of schoolwork to attend to.  I only went outside when I ran some errands that I needed to do today.  I do believe when one is really busy, a little break to enjoy to outdoors is even more meaningful, more special, than if had spent the whole day outside.

While in the center of town, I took some photos.  It was hard to find scenes with vibrant colors for the photos.  Most of the trees still had green leaves.  I remember hearing a news report back in September that predicted the fall colors were going to be muted this year because the cool down was going to gradual.  We would miss the vibrant reds and oranges.  The transition would be slow from green to muted yellow to brown.  That is exactly what happened.

 

 

  

 

Historically, before the reality of climate change, by Halloween, all the leaves would have fallen.  That has not been for case for, I want to say, the past ten years.  The winters in the past several years have been temperate as well.  Oddly, the prediction for winter is for a colder and snowier one because a La Niña weather pattern is expected.  Google’s AI summary is for a “potentially very cold and snowy, with forecasts for a stormy season featuring multiple large snowfalls” for Chicagoland.  I know I in the minority on this, but I would love to see an old fashioned winter with some below zero cold spells and a few blizzards that results a snow day or two.

Winter will be what it will be.  I sure did enjoy this lovely fall day.

 

Postscript:  Well… I had this post three-quarters done when Microsoft informed that there was an update to Word.  I saved the document, closed Word, and restarted as is the protocol for an update.  Much to my surprise, everything I had typed was gone.  All that remained was the title.  I am not sure what I did or didn’t do but it gone.  I have to assume it was my fault.  It has been a long while since that kind of boneheaded thing has happened.

It is also clear that I had not used AI to write the post.  If I had I could have simply copy and pasted the content again, or if I had signed out, I could simply reenter the prompt and have a brand new version to cut and paste.  My only options were to rewrite it or forget about it entirely and live to blog another day.  I opted for re-writing it.

 

  

 

The Same Old 6 and 7

 

Young people always have slang that us older folks don’t understand.  The life span of these slang terms is very short.  Words and phrase are always entering and leaving the slang lexicon of young people.  Thankfully, the Wall Street Journal will occasionally publish an article presenting and explaining the latest slew of terms.  Because of this wonderful service from the Journal my kids were surprised when I would throw one of these words or terms.

A recent article in the Journal, The Numbers Six and Seven Are Making Life Hell for Math Teachers, introduced the latest piece of slang is taking over classrooms and social media feeds, leaving teachers and older generations scratching their heads: the phrase "6-7" (often pronounced "six-sev-eeennn"). This simple numerical pairing, frequently accompanied by an excited, palms-up hand gesture, has become a linguistic rage for a generation of young teens and kids, collectively known as Gen Alpha. Its rise is a perfect case study in how modern memes are born, spread, and evolve into a cultural phenomenon that signals who is "in" on the joke.

Per the Journal article:

Math teacher Cara Bearden braces herself for any equation that yields the two numbers, knowing her students will immediately scream them right back at her. “SIX Sevennnnnn,” they squeal with a palms-up, seesaw hand gesture that looks somewhere between juggling and melon handling. The meme is ripping across the internet and spilling into real life, especially at school.

“If you’re like, ‘Hey, you need to do questions six, seven,’ they just immediately start yelling, ‘Six Seven!’” says Bearden, who teaches sixth- and eighth-graders at Austin Peace Academy in Austin, Texas. “It’s like throwing catnip at cats.” 

The root of this "6-7" is a rap track "Doot Doot (6 7)" by artist Skrilla, released in 2024. The song snippet quickly went viral on platforms like TikTok and Instagram Reels. Its popularity was significantly amplified by a loose connection to the world of sports, as the audio was often used in video edits featuring NBA star LaMelo Ball, who famously stands at 6 feet 7 inches. This association helped cement the phrase in the minds of young users. The trend achieved full-blown meme status thanks to subsequent viral moments, including a video of a high school basketball prospect using the phrase and another of a young boy (dubbed the "6-7 Kid") enthusiastically shouting it at a game, complete with the now-iconic hand gesture.

 

 

"6-7" is a joke with no punchline; it doesn't actually mean anything. It functions as an absurd, random exclamation, often shouted when the numbers "six" or "seven" are mentioned, or sometimes, for no reason at all. Communication experts and linguists note that its very meaninglessness is its power; it serves purely as a social tool. By using "6-7," kids and teens create a shared language that instantly identifies their peers and separates them from outsiders, a classic generational practice that reflects the rapidly changing nature of digital culture.  And… it is fun.

But it is not as new and recent as we all think. 

Let’s go back to the 1970s.  I was in my mid-twenties working at Ford Motor Company.  One of my work colleagues was an engineer, a proud Purdue graduate, named Bill Granberry.  He was a few years older than me, great fellow, and a good work friend.  One day, we were talking, and I was expressing bewilderment at something, perhaps an organizational move, or product decision.  Bill kept saying “it’s the same old 6 and 7” which I thought was his attempt to clear up my bewilderment.  As it meant nothing to me, I finally asked out of a bit of frustration, “What is 6 and 7?”  He paused a second, looked at me and said, “13.”  After another moment, we both started laughing.  Bill got me.

Upon learning of the current “6 7” craze, it made me think of Bill’s use of it 50 years ago.  So, in summation, all I can is what’s old is new again.