Çidem İnç - The Long Road to Razmig Sucuyan

Ruhi Su

     There are those times, those breakthrough "aha" moments, that we never forget.  For me, one song and two singers have accounted for three such moments.  Moments where my love and supposed understanding of the music which is genetically intertwined with my heritage took quantum leaps to higher levels.
     The song?  Kalenin Bedenleri in Turkish, Siko Khorepse Gugli Mu in Greek, and, most commonly referred to by the musicians I often play with as, Hopa Nina Nay.
     The singers?  Stelios Kazantzidis and Ruhi Su.
     The first impact from this song was in the 1960s.  We were on summer vacation in Watertown, MA which was the most Armenian place I knew growing up.  My father was from there and we would annually visit his mother, my grandmother Agnes, for two weeks in the summer.  On one of these visits, my father went to the record store, the Armenian record store to see what was new.  He came back with a small stack of Greek 45 rpms.  "You've got to hear this song. It's fabulous," he exclaimed when he walked into the house.  It was Siko Khorepse Gugli Mu sung by the inimitable Stelios Kazantzidis, which I did not know at the time as I could not yet read the Greek on the record label.  I remember being mesmerized and instantly in love with the song and became a lifetime admirer of Kazantzidis.  
     My father played that record the rest of the day, nonstop, well into the evening when they had a barbecue in the back yard.  The police had to eventually come and tell him to turn it off as they were getting complaints from the neighbors.  This was pre-stereo system days, so it had to have been played on a record player.  It couldn't have been that loud.
     That song and that singer are certainly a larger factor for my getting into this music.

Here is the Stelios Kazantzidis version:  Siko Khorepse Gugli Mu


     Let's dial it forward a few years.  I am a mathematics major at Michigan.  A Turkish student I got to know (Çidem İnç - Thoughts and Dichotomies), finished her masters, was about to go back to Turkey, and handed me a few LPs and several 45s saying, "I don't want to take these back to Turkey and I know you will appreciate them."  It was very kind of her.   I am sad to say we never exchanged address and at this point, I cannot even recall her name.  I want to say it was Ayse.  She gave me recordings of fasils and Istanbul Turkuleri.  I enjoyed the music but somehow for some reason left one 45 for last:  Kalenin Bedeleri - Ruhi Su.  The title did not ring a bell, so I did not listen to it right away.
     During that summer, I had picked up Peter Najarian's book Voyages which was also a life changing experience that will have to wait for another blog post.  I was listening to the Turkish records while reading Najarian's book in my parents home.  I decided to play all the 45s and loaded them into the changer.  The record I had yet to listen to came on somewhere in the mix and I just stopped and listened, over and over again.  What a voice, so rich and deep.  I was mesmerized.  I already loved the song but this version took things to a whole new level in my soul.  I thought I knew something about the music since I had already been playing and performing for several years.  I knew then there was so much more to learn and experience. 

 Ruhi Su singing and playing the saz:  Kalenin Bedenleri

     

    Ruhi Su?  Who was he?  I asked my friends and relatives from Turkey.  They told me he was trained as an opera singer who then became a troubadour.  The opera training certainly explained his deep, clear, and exquisite voice.  He was also a communist, which was not a good thing to be in Turkey back then. 
     Over the years, I moved from records to cassettes to CDs to mp3s.  I no longer have a record player and very few records.  The records Ayse gave me were long thrown out.  I have since bought a Ruhi Su CD with Kalenin Bedenleri on it.  There are numerous Ruhi Su recordings on YouTube though no Kalenin Bedenleri at the time of this writing.  I wanted to read more about him but he did not have the notoriety of his comrade Nazim Hikmet.
     The third and most recent "aha" moment came this past Saturday, April 28.  Late in the evening, I was on Facebook and Anatolian Armenians posted the following (the English translation is compliments of Facebook):

Ermeni yetimi Ruhi Su (Razmig Sucuyan)

1912'de Van'da doğan Ruhi Su bütün ailesini soykırımda kaybetti. Ermeni yetimi Ruhi (Razmig) ilk önce bir Ermeni Yetimhanesi'ne daha sonra da bir aileye evlatlık verildi. Evlatlık verilen ailenin yanında köle gibi çalıştırılan, okula gönderilmeyen ve her gün aile tarafından şiddete maruz kalan Ruhi Su'ya bölgedeki Alevi köylüleri sahip çıktı.

Küçük Ruhi'nin bütün okul masrafları ve harçlıkları yine Alevi köylüleri tarafından karşılandı. Ruhi Su büyüdüğünde Alevilere vefa borcunu ödemek için çokca Alevi deyişi seslendirdi. Eski bir Ermeni binası olan Sansaryan'da ağır işkenceler gören Ruhi Su, cezaevindeki koşullardan dolayı kansere yakalandı. Ruhi Su'ya "Ermeni ve Komunist" olduğu için pasaport verilmedi. Ruhi Su 20 Eylül 1985'te hayata gözlerini yumdu.

Armenian orphan spiritual water (Razmig Sucuyan)

The Spirit that was born in van in 1912 lost his entire family to the Holocaust. The Armenian Orphan Ruhi (Razmig) was first adopted to an Armenian orphanage and then a family. He was a slave to the adopted family, who was forced to go to school and had been subjected to violence by the family every day.

All the school expenses and allowance of little Ruhi were greeted by the Alevi villagers again. When he grew up, he sang a lot of fire to pay his debt to the Alevis. In Sansaryan, a former Armenian building, the spiritual water has been diagnosed with cancer due to conditions in prison. No passport was given to Ruhi Su because hewas " Armenian and communist On September 20, 1985, the spirit passed away.

     Oh my, after all these years, like 55 of them, I find out the Ruhi Su is Armenian who was born in Van before the Genocide and was named Razmig Sucuyan.   Çidem inç indeed.

Çidem İnç - Thoughts and Dichotomies

     On April 12, 2015, I began titling a few of my posts with the Armenian Chidem Inch which is a slangy contraction of Chem Kider or I Don’t Know. You can reference the first post below to learn how this idea came to me.

1. Chidem Inch
2. Chidem Inch - Kim Kardashian in Armenia
3. Çidem İnç - Hagop Martayan 
4. Chidem Inch - Descendants of Survivors and Saints
5. Chidem Inch - The G Word
6. Chidem Inch: Sedition Medition!
7. Çidem İnç: Terror in Paris and Beirut
8. January 2016: Chidem Inch - The Water Diviner 
9. April 2016: Chidem Inch - April 24th
10. Chidem Inch: April 24, 2018

     I have resumed that series again this year with two posts this month… soon to be three. Sometimes I use the Anglized version Chidem Inch and sometimes I use, Çidem İnç, using the Turkish Alphabet created by an Armenian, Hagop Martoyan at the behest of Kemal Ataturk (see number 3 in the above list for that story).
     Every year around this time, I have a similar experience. Armenians commemorate the anniversary of April 24th. I am struck with a variety of thoughts and dichotomies. It is not that these thoughts and dichotomies are non-existent or dormant the rest of the year. The commemoration speeches, programs, articles, and postings just make them more top of mind.
     What are these thoughts and dichotomies, these thoughtful dichotomies, and dichotomous thoughts?
     #TurkeyFailed: Let me begin with this. We Armenians love to use this tagline and hashtag to defiantly show Turks and Turkey that we have survived, we are still here, and, oh yeah, we mean to seek and see justice prevail. How did they fail? They took all of our lands and wealth. They dispersed a large portion of the survivors across the globe. That diaspora is under risk. The UN has classified Western Armenian as a language at risk. At risk of dying. Going away. Western Armenian is or was the language of the Diaspora. It was what made Aleppo and Beirut Armenian centers. Gone? #TurkeyFailed?
     Aleppo was a center and close to the homeland. Many in the 50s and 60s moved to Beirut. And the Syrian Civil War killed whatever was left there. Beirut, yes, it is still close to the homeland, there are still Armenians there, but in much lesser numbers since the civil war. The real diaspora in the US, Europe, South America, and Australia? Without immigration from the Middle East and Armenia, these communities would have dwindled based on my very unscientific quasi-statistical observations. Yes, Turkey Failed, as I, second generation born in the US, am still here, still embrace my culture albeit a hybrid culture, and still consider myself Armenian.
     Turkish people vs. the Turkish Government: I am not a big fan of the Turkish Government… any of them since… um… perhaps… Sultan Osman I. But, truth be told, I don’t know enough to make that sweeping statement. I leave that to the historians. So, my statement is only applied to the governments since Sultan Abdul Hamid II. Abdul Hamid massacred Armenians and set the tone and prelude for the 1915 Genocide perpetrated by the Young Turk government. Ataturk did call the Genocide “a despicable act” but did nothing to make amends. He was too busy building and modernizing a nation and either probably hated Armenians, didn’t care about Armenians, or would have found dealing with them a distraction from his country building endeavors. Since then, the governments have all been denialists. They have set the tone for country. Erdogan? Well… the only thing I like about this guy is that all the Turks I know hate him more than the Armenians I know do.
     Turks I know? Yes, Turks I know. I never knew any until I went to Michigan. I met some in the math department. I was wary. I expected… I am not sure what I expected but it was nothing positive. As my views weren’t based on my own personal experience, my biases were just that: biases. Over the years, I have gotten to know a fair number of Turks. In graduate school at Wayne State University, I became good friends with a fellow student Halim. We are in touch still on Facebook. We discussed the Armenian-Turkish situation pretty often and in as much depth as two industrial engineering graduate students might get. We found out where we agreed and where we disagreed and managed to remain friends. I was surprised at first and then quite proud of ourselves.
     I got to know more Turks and Kurds over the years at Colgate and now in Chicago playing in the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble (MEME). At Colgate, we had business in common. In MEME, it is the music. Among the folks I have gotten to know are a few good friends, a larger number of acquaintances, and a few where we are not each other’s cup of tea. Not oddly, the proportions are the same as the general population. Go figure.
     The dichotomy for me here is to separate judging individual Turks I meet and get to know from judging and holding the Turkish Government accountable.
     It is sad part of history. But, it didn’t happen to you. I had nothing to do with it: This is what I do hear occasionally from Turks that I know. Well, they are correct. I did not experience the Genocide first hand. Three of my four grandparents did. My paternal grandmother was born in Andover, MA where her family moved having seen the writing on the wall after the Hamidian Massacres. I have, however, experienced the vestiges, the White Genocide, the Djermak Chardt. While we have a great life in this free country and have prospered, we might well have done the same in our ancestral homelands embraced fully in our culture.
     On the other hand, this is exactly what I would say to an American Indian if one were to confront me as to what the United States has done to them:  It is a sad part of history, my people had nothing to do with it.  It is what people who have benefited and are on the “winning” side of a Genocide tend to say.
     Conclusion: Yes, this was a bit of a ramble. Some will respond favorably. Others will see fit to school on this point or that that I just don’t get… and I may actually learn something.
     I will leave with a passage from William Saroyan’s from “The Armenian and the Armenian” from his second book Inhale & Exhale (1936). My thoughts and dichotomies are nothing new…

I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard, whose prayers are no longer uttered. Go ahead, destroy this race. Let us say that it is again 1915. There is war in the world. Destroy Armenia. See if you can do it. Send them from their homes into the desert. Let them have neither bread nor water. Burn their houses and their churches. See if they will not live again. See if they will not laugh again. See if the race will not live again when two of them meet in a beer parlor, twenty years after, and laugh, and speak in their tongue. Go ahead, see if you can do anything about it. See if you can stop them from mocking the big ideas of the world, you sons of bitches, a couple of Armenians talking in the world, go ahead and try to destroy them.

     Yeah, OK, #TurkeyFailed… you sons of bitches…

Ford Drives Sedans Out of their Showrooms

I had the Mercury Version of this Taurus Station Wagon.
It was the Ford same color and looked exactly like this.

     Ford Motor announce earlier this week that it was basically getting out of the car business in the US. The market has changed. There has been a decline for demand of traditional cars i.e. sedans. The marketplace is shifting to SUVs and Light Trucks, and that is where Ford will focus their future product development and offerings. They will continue to produce two cars: the Mustang and an about to be launched Ford Focus Active which is small SUV.
     There are several reasons for this. First and foremost is the shift in the market. As gasoline prices dropped, the market has shifted from 60% cars and 40% light trucks and SUVs to the compliment of that mix. Add to the gasoline price drop the fact millennials are aging and starting families and today we are seeing a marketplace that is 40% cars and 60% light trucks and SUVs. Ford announced this when people around me are beginning to complain that gasoline is again $3/gallon. It is reported that Ford can mitigate higher gasoline prices by leveraging and advancing their EcoBoost engine technology to make the light trucks and SUVs have better fuel economy.
     Fiat Chrysler has already done this. The only sedans they now offer are the Challenger and Charger. These are muscle cars like the Mustang. They are focusing on their RAM and Jeep lines along with their Chrysler Pacifica minivan. There are articles that say GM is not far behind.
     Another reason for this shift is that Ford’s financial performance has not been impressive. Last year, CEO Mark Fields was let go because the stock price dropped 40% during his tenure. Jim Hackett took his place and made this call:
It's been easy to identify what's wrong and what we need to do about it. The handwringing maybe that has been around our business is gone. We're starting to understand what we need to do and make clear decisions there.
     My first real full-time job was at Ford. I started there in 1975. I was delighted to be part of the auto industry. I grew up in Detroit and loved it when the new models were announced each fall. I could name every car on the road at an early age. Our church was in Dearborn which is the heart of Ford country, many people we knew worked at Ford or GM, and I went to college at Michigan’s Dearborn campus which stood on Henry Ford’s Fairlane Estate. My maternal grandfather, Levon, worked in the foundry at Ford’s Rouge facility. Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company loomed large in my life. I was delighted to be part of Ford Motor Company at the beginning of my career.
     I thought that I would work there until I retired. As it turned out, that was not the case. I left to work automotive supply industry for a decade and then left the auto industry entirely moving to consumer-packaged goods for the bulk of my career. I still followed the auto industry intently because of my Detroit and Ford roots.
     When I started at Ford I thought, when we put our minds to it, we would be able to beat the Japanese at their own game which was to produce high quality and reliability cars at lower prices. Toyota and Honda were indeed producing higher quality and reliability cars than Ford, GM, and Chrysler were, and they were selling them for less. As it turned out, this was not the case either. It was not so easy to do. The Japanese had dramatically changed the game and the US companies had become bloated in terms of staff and layers of management. This resulted in slow and politically dominated product development. Customer focused design and engineering, with the exception of the looks of the cars, fell along the wayside. If you combine with this a completely misguided sense of superiority and overconfidence, especially at GM, the industry was headed for a rough period. That rough period lasted for decades.
     Ford did embrace quality as Job 1. They did transform themselves and prove that they could design a best-selling sedan, the Ford Taurus which was launched in 1986. Lew Veraldi led a team that created a better process for customer focused, quality driven, new product development. It was a great success for that one model. The Taurus was the best-selling sedan in the US. Ford did not sustain what Veraldi created. Instead Toyota upped their game and became the best-selling sedan in the US for most of the 1990s and 2000s.
     All of the articles I read are giving Ford kudos for dropping their sedan offerings and focusing on light trucks and SUVs. They call it a “brilliant” and “a logical idea”. Yet, the stock price did not immediately tick up.  This move is probably overdue. Analysts and reporters that follow the automotive industry have been predicting or suggesting this for awhile as Detroit has not been able to make money from smaller cars for years.
     This move by Ford? It is probably the right thing to do.
     To me, well the part of me that is still a kid smitten by the auto industry, it is sad. Ford and GM to me have always been car companies. I thought they always would be. Of course, and I know this, nothing lasts forever.

Hey, Hey, Hey… OMG!

     The verdict came in earlier today. A jury found Bill Cosby guilty on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault in a court in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Each count could bring him 10 years of prison. We shall see what the final sentencing brings. 
     I want to say it is a sad day. It is not. It is not a sad day when justice is served. With 50 plus women coming out with stories of being drugged and sexually assaulted, I already thought Cosby was guilty. It was just a matter of whether his fame and, presumably, excellent legal team that his wealth afforded would be able to maneuver his acquittal or getting off with a less severe verdict. It did not matter this time around. 
     I heard one of the victims on NPR that referred to him as a habitual predator. She called what he did a detestable hobby and that he was not a man. She talked about the valiant efforts of the plaintiff in this trial, Andrea Constand, of persevering ridicule, harassment, and humiliation over several years to bring Cosby to justice. 
     This was not her first trial accusing Cosby. There was another last year, which resulted in a deadlocked jury. What changed in a year? Some of the articles I have just read say it is the #MeToo movement. The #MeToo movement started with the revelation of Harvey Weinstein’s despicable behavior and his subsequent downfall. The articles are already claiming that all the buzz and coverage around the #MeToo movement may have swayed the jury. One article even said this was the first big win of the movement. 
     The contrast of the image Cosby had built for himself and revelation of his true character as revealed by these legal proceedings is indeed astonishing in a most disillusioning way. Cosby, through his humor and immensely successful sitcom, The Cosby Show, had built an image of himself as America’s Dad. He was a role model for that era as was the Ward Cleaver character a generation earlier. As a black man, Cosby was a role model of fatherhood across all races. That was something that was celebrated on a rather grand scale. 
     Cosby’s image was damaged in the Black community even before this. Before all of these accusation of drugging and sexual assault, Cosby had taken to accusing the Black community of using vernacular English, having too many single parent families, spending money on frivolities instead of necessities for their families, and not taking any responsibility for their actions, behaviors, and general condition. Many white people applauded him while many blacks viewed him as a traitor. 
     In 1996, he authored a nationwide bestseller, Fatherhood. I do believe I actually got a copy of that book on Father’s Day of that year. I read it. It was a quick read with some humorous passage that I recalled being moderately inspirational. How things have changed. How this image has been demolished. 
     I cannot feel sorry for him. I do feel sorry for his victims and hope that today’s conviction will bring some closure for them and their families.

Chidem Inch: April 24, 2018

The Protest that led to the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan

     It April 24th and I am Armenian. Therefore, my thoughts are on what is now the 103rd anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian Genocide.
     This year’s commemoration began this past Sunday with a joint mass of all the Armenian churches in Chicago. It was good to see us all together for Badarak (mass) and then a commemorative program. The program was really well done. It was organized and emceed by Maral Abrahamian of the Armenian National Committee. There were words from community leaders notably Daron Bedian of the Armenian Youth Federation, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, and the newly appointed Honorary Consul of the Republic of Armenia in Chicago, Oscar Tatosian. Mostly, they talked about dedicating and rededicating ourselves to fighting for recognition and justice.
     Of course, what they all said was correct and is what we should be doing. Yet, I could not help but wonder if part of our focus should be on preserving and strengthening our communities in the US and the rest of the Diaspora. Also, I was curious why no one mentioned anything about the political turmoil and protests in Armenia regarding the power play by the previous President Serzh Sargsyan.
     In his last term as President, the Sargsyan administration effected a change from a presidential system of government to a parliamentary one thus making the prime minister the chief executive of the state instead of the president. As it smelled a lot like what Putin and Erdogan had done to maintain leadership in Russia and Turkey respectively, Armenians were concerned that it was a power play by Sargsyan. Sargsyan assured everyone that this was not his intent. Then, after the new president, Armen Sarkissian, was sworn in, Sargsyan was named Prime Minister by Parliament on Tuesday, April 17. The whole country gasped and groaned and then took to the streets in protest. The throng grew on the streets with each successive day and centered around the leadership of Nigol Pashinyan a politician opposed to Sargsyan and his party.
     Serzh Sargsyan, at first took a tough stance, figuring that the opposition and protests would fade away or be quelled as they were in his both his presidential elections. That did not happen this time. Every day the numbers protesting grew. The people, especially the youth, were fed up. The people of Armenia were fed up and doing something about it. As pictured above, the throng grew to proportions where Sargsyan had to resign. From today’s New York Times:

The pressure on Mr. Sargsyan, 63, to resign ratcheted up markedly on Monday after soldiers from one company of the country’s prestigious peacekeeping force, which had served abroad in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kosovo, joined the march in Yerevan in their uniforms. 

“I was wrong,” Mr. Sargsyan said in a brief resignation statement carried by the official news agency. “The street movement is against my tenure. I am fulfilling your demand.”

     It will be interesting to see where this goes and if, indeed, Armenia will become more democratic and get on the path of becoming the exemplary country in terms of commerce, education, and healthcare we know that it can be. The selection of the next prime minister will be a telling step.

Gathering at Dzidzernagapert - Foxnews.com

     Without missing a beat, today, a day after Sargsyan’s resignation, the people of Armenia again took to the streets in the annual procession to Dzidzernagapert – The Armenian Genocide Memorial to commemorate the 103rdanniversary of the darkest time in our history. It is indeed a day to reflect on the past, but also to look to the future of the Republic of Armenia and our people around the world. Today, it looks more hopeful than it did a week ago.
     We have to never forget the past and fight for recognition, but we have to build for future. Building for the future may even be more important as it is more in our control.  

     Getzeh Hayastan!

--
My friend from childhood, Karen Kevorkian, put this video together in 2015. The opening music is "Anoush Karoon."  I am playing the oud with Tom Zakarian on Keyboard. It is from the album "Children of Armenia"- produced by Ara Topouzian who also played on every other track.

LED Light Bulbs

Amazon.com

     As this is a blog of musings and meanderings, I am feeling motivated to write about light bulbs. Yes, light bulbs.
     Light bulbs were once a pretty easy product or commodity to buy and use. We had lamps and fixtures both in the house and a few outside. There was always the odd size bulb in the oven or refrigerator but for the most part, we would buy frosted, soft-white, incandescent bulbs. I would go to the store and buy either singles, doubles, four or six packs of 40, 60, or 100-watt bulbs. Mostly, I would buy 60 and 100-watt bulbs. Occasionally, I we would buy three-way bulbs, but they never lasted long, so over the years, we just put 100 or 60-watt bulbs in those table lamps.
     Over the years, our homes have more and more lights. In my current home, we have recessed flood lights and more lamps in each room. Just in our kitchen-family room great room, we have seventeen recessed flood lamps, a floor lamp, a table lamp, three chandeliers, and accent fluorescent lights above the cabinets. Growing up, we only had one or two ceiling light fixtures in the kitchen. The contrast is mind boggling when I think of it. If our basements were finished, there were fluorescent fixtures in the drop ceiling. All this being said, most the light bulbs we bought and used were incandescent, basically the kind that Edison invented way back in 1879. The more lights we had, the more they burned out, and the more bulbs I had to buy and stock in the house.
     Incandescent bulbs had a long run. But they needed to go. They burn too hot, consume too much electricity, and really don’t last that long. The light is produced by the glow or a very fragile wire filament. Any variation or surge in electricity and “poof,” they would burn out.
     For a while, the industry tried to foist fluorescent bulbs on us, but they were, in short… awful. They were more expensive, did not provide the same kind of soft white as nice frosted incandescent bulbs. They were supposed to last longer. Maybe they did last longer but I replaced them before they burned out. Fluorescent bulbs tended to develop an irritating flicker that rendered them useless to me.
     In the past ten years, LED bulbs have come on the scene. They use way less electricity, burn cooler, truly last much longer. At first, their only downside was that they were outrageously expensive. Also, the first LED bulbs were not available in the soft-white light that most people were used to and desired. They all had that artificial fluorescent stark white color that was only acceptable in business settings. Technology marched forward, and soon such bulbs started appearing in about three shades of white one of which was the stark white which became known as daylight and two grades of soft white. The major impediment to shifting from incandescent to LED was the still the purchase price. Even though they would eventually pay for themselves by not needing replacement so often and using less electricity, I could not bring myself to $10, $15, $20 or more for a light bulb.
     I was curious and wanted to give these new bulbs a try. There were a few fixtures in our house where the bulbs were always burning out three or four times a year. One of these locations was in our closet. We certainly needed good lighting there to help our aging eyes distinguish between black and navy blue. I bought some LED lights for these fixtures and haven’t changed them in over six years.
     As technology improved and volumes increased, economies of scale have kicked-in and the LED bulbs have become much cheaper. I find them affordable. I am not alone either. It

seems, at least around where I live, the big box stores like Lowes and Home Depot have almost entirely switched over. I was to the point where LED lights is all I was going to buy moving forward. Almost simultaneously, that seems to be all the stores are carrying.
     A problem still remains. Whenever I buy LED bulbs, I inevitably have to go back to the store and return them and buy them again. I certainly pay attention to wattage or in the case of LEDs the wattage equivalent. I am not used to making sure I get soft white and end up with the brighter daylight coloring. Thus, the necessity for a second trip back to the store. There is another option on these bulbs that I have not yet had to pay attention to. The bulbs come in regular or dimmable. I am sure that when I will have to buy soft white dimmable bulbs. It will happen someday and I will probably come home with daylight bulbs first. I will go back to the store, make the exchange, and return home with soft-white but undimmable bulbs necessitating a third trip to the store. Ah the complexities of modern technology.
     All in all, I love the LED bulbs. I love that they last longer, use less electricity, and burn cooler. I especially like that I now have three-way bulbs that actually work… on all three settings!

It Might be a Detroit Thing

Chris and I with our Student Assistants

     I am an Associate Professor of Operations Management in School of Business and Nonprofit Management (SBNM) at North Park University. I began in the 2014/15 academic year. That same year my colleague Chris Hubbard, Assistant Professor of Management Leadership, also joined SBNM as well. We were freshmen faculty together even though we were years apart in age. For me, this position was what I am calling my “encore career” having already retired from industry. Chris, on the other hand, was just finishing up his PhD and really just starting his academic career in earnest.
     In getting to know each other and becoming friends, we realized we were both from Detroit and actually attended the same high school, Cass Tech, albeit years apart. I did not graduate from Cass and I am not sure Chris did either.
     Last summer, we both traveled to China and taught at the Anhui University of Finance and Economics in Bengbu. It was my second year there and Chris’s first. It was a great experience and a chance for us to hang out and bond even more. It was there that I picked up on something Chris did and recognized it as something I did as well.
     We were in the Canteen, a huge four-story cafeteria, on our first day. After lunch, we stopped in the snack shop to buy water. Chris bought an ice cream bar. We paid using our school issued ID on which we had deposited some cash. The next day we did the same thing except this time we had our student assistants with us. Chris realized the same cashier charged him fifty cents or, maybe, a dollar less for the same ice cream when he was by himself then when he was with our Chinese student assistants. It bothered him a bit.
     He brought it up a few times that day randomly. He would exclaim that he could not believe the same cashier cheated him when he was by himself but not when accompanied by Chinese students. He wanted to go back and confront her. He wanted to get his money back.
     It was funny. We knew he was joking. Mostly.
     But, he kept bring it up. The next day. It was always random and a bit surprising in the context of whatever conversation. It was still funny but a bit less so with each repeat. By the third day, it started to be downright annoying. But, then, after a more days, perhaps it was the 87th time he brought it up, it started to funny again… real funny.
     So, I asked him, “Do you do that often?” He responded, “Do what?” I explained what I observed to him and confessed that in seeing him do that, I realized it was also something I did fairly often. He then thought about it and said, “yeah… I actually do.” I asked “Does it irritate your wife? It can drive mine crazy.” He said, “Absolutely.” We laughed and decided that it had to be a Detroit thing. Since, then it has been our Detroit thing.
     Just last week, I was playing at a coffee house owned by a friend, Aynur, who sings in the Turkish Concerts at the Middle Eastern Music Ensemble (MEME) of the University of Chicago. There were five of us in the group and four of us were from MEME. It was a lot of fun. They put in long tables, seated 70 people in a space that barely could hold 70 people, served a delicious Turkish dinner, and we played a concert and then some dance music. As we were rehearsing for the concert over the few weeks earlier, I had asked Aynur if they would be serving “midye dolma”, a wonderful dish of stuffed mussels with

Our Group with Aynur singing.  Marc Dubay Photo

aromatic rice, herbs, spices, and olive oil. It is a favorite of mine but not something I often get because it is a time consuming to make. She laughed and said “No, not this time.”
     Well… I soon found myself doing that Detroit thing and bringing up the midye dolma when it seemed appropriate. Appropriate usually, in the case of this Detroit Thing, means in an unexpected context with the goal at first of being funny. Aynur or Jim Stoynoff, our concert master, would suggest that we consider playing this song or that. I would occasionally say, “Sure, if Aynur will make midye dolma.” We would laugh.
     Soon, I was getting responses like “oh, you and your midye dolma” and “you are obsessed with midye dolma” and such. I had moved from Phase 1 which is “OK funny” to Phase 2 which referred to either as “WTF?” or “enough already.” One only stops at Phase 2 if someone blows their lid which happens about 10% of the time. Otherwise, it is totally unfair to stop at Phase 2. So, I persisted.
     Mind you, this is not really anything we do with premeditation. It is more of a weird habit or better yet a modus operandi or vivendi. It is hard wired into our personalities. It is our thing… our Detroit Thing.
     The night after our concert on Friday where I mentioned midye dolma another 18 times, we went to a dinner party. Our good friends Claude and Audrey had three couples at their home. We were all Armenian and she served, yeah you guessed it, midye dolma. I

Audrey's Amazing Midye Dolma

started laughing and told them the story. I was also delighted to get midye dolma and Audrey did a great job.
     I took a photo of it and emailed it to the musicians and Aynur simply responded, “When you mention 40 times, it happens.” She later wrote, the next time we do the concert, she will serve midye dolma and other seafood. Just today, Jim suggested I fly to the fish market in Istanbul to make the selections personally. Now, I was laughing. We were in Phase 3. Mission accomplished.
     Is it really a Detroit thing? Chris and I would agree as academics that a sample size of two is not anywhere near definitive. We would have to design and field a survey, do a cultural observation and assessment, and on and on. But, this is not an academic thing. It is our Detroit Thing.

The Astrological Something or Other

www.astrology.ca 

     About a month ago, I read or heard about an astrological phase we were entering. It seemed that some planet or moon that was in retrograde. Maybe it was that some planet, star, or moon was in conjunction with some other planet, star, or moon. Things were aligned or misaligned. It seemed rare. And, according to the report, it was to have an effect on all of us. We were all entering a period of increased chaos and lower productivity. If memory serves me correctly, it was supposed to last until the middle of April or the beginning of May.
     This, of course, is all from memory. As I didn’t think it was all that important, I did not save the article, capture the link, or pay attention to what radio station I might have been listening to. The reason is simple. I am not an astrological fellow. I pay attention now and then with some amusement, but do not take it seriously. While I say this, I do have respect and interest for the lunar cycle and the ebb and flow of the oceans and am open to how these forces impact our lives and emotion. Oh, the dichotomies.
     I really wish, at this writing, that I had saved the source of the story so I could properly name and refer to whatever it was that was happening in the heavens. It seems it is all, picture me typing this sheepishly, true.
     Since then, everyone has seemed out of sorts. People are touchy and edgy bordering on what we simply used to call: nuts. Also, enough people around me complained about being unproductive and lethargic to make me notice. I include myself in all this. I feel like with every task I do that I am slogging through mud. My productivity is suspect on good days, but these past few weeks? Oh my, things have been slow to get started and overly tedious and slower in the doing. Touchy and edgy? This too. I find that I am less patient with everyone and everyone I interact with is also more touchy and edgy with me.
     Things seem to be getting better, however, in the past few days. So, hopefully, whatever it was has moved on. Thanks for that, because my backlog of half-started, nowhere near starting, and uncompleted tasks has turned not into a mountain but more of a mountain range.
     Here is the big question. Was this real? I do believe what I have reported as happening to me, did happen. Was it due to that astrological thing? I am not sure. Maybe yes. Maybe, it was the placebo effect of that news item?  Maybe, I have just been overtired. I have no way of judging that. Sure, some folks with read this and reach out to tell me it is all imagined and in my head.  Others, will explain it all with some astrological psycho-babble that will turn me off just by the way they explain it.
     All I know is that my productivity does ebb and flow. It is not cyclic enough for me to notice or predict, but it does happen. Why it happens and what I can do about it? Ah… I would love to know.

April 4, 1968

MLK Memorial in DC

     April 4:  1968 was a pivotal year in many ways. I was coming of age. I was full of the hope instilled in me from both family and society. That hope was based on the American ideal and dream.
     Fifty years ago today, Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis.
     It was a Thursday. It was a beautiful Spring day in Detroit with the temperature hitting 68. It was a few days before Palm Sunday.
     I was finishing up 9th Grade at Cadillac Junior High School and thinking about high school not yet sure if I was going to Cooley High School which was two blocks from our house or Cass Tech downtown. It was a crazy time in Detroit, it was only nine months after the 1967 Riots which rocked the city putting it on a path of white flight and a gradual slide that led to the insolvency of the once great city. Because the city was still in the aftershock of the Riots, Detroit Public Schools decided to close schools on April 5th. I am not sure if they did out of fear that racial tensions in schools might erupt into violence or if it was to be day of mourning for the slain civil rights icon. I am going with the former.
     April 5th, the day off from school, was a good 25 degrees cooler. I looked it up because I recalled that it was a warmer day than that. When we learned school was out, a group of us that had played pick-up baseball games for years, decided to meet at Cooley High School and play another. I do not even remember who all showed up, but I remember playing. We played on the big high school diamond and not on a side field where we had always played. We were kids bordering on becoming young men. We did not talk much about the assassination. We did not feel scared at all. It was a peaceful day. That might have been the last pick-up baseball game I ever played.
     There was a moment, however, when the reality of what had happened in Memphis and what might happen as a result became quite real. In the midst of our baseball, I looked over and saw a National Guard Jeep driving down Chalfonte. It was one of those Jeeps with a machine gun mounted in the rear. Two guardsmen were in the Jeep. One was driving and the other standing up with his hands on the machine gun. The pulled into the school parking lot, did a loop, and drove off. The whole thing might have only been a minute long, but it had an impact. Whatever idyllic world I had grown up in was over. America had changed. Of course, America was always changing during my entire life from the McCarthy Era to JFK’s assassination to the Vietnam War to the Civil Rights Movement and on that day in April, the assassination of Marin Luther King. This may well have been the inflection point from the Wonder Years to adulthood for me.
     The Detroit Tigers had yet to open their season. The opener was on April 10th and they would go on to win the pennant and the World Series. That World Series Championship and graduating from Cadillac Junior High made the year magical. The 1967 Riots, the assassination of King, the June assassination of Robert F. Kennedy on June 5, the craziness of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, the on-going Vietnam War, and the election of Richard Nixon in November made for a most turbulent time to be coming of age. It will be the 50th year for all of these events as well.
     And what did my almost 15-year-old self think about the assassination of Martin Luther King? Sadly, until I saw the National Guard Jeep with the machine gun drive by, I did not give it much thought. I was not treating the day off with the joy that a snow day would have brought. I knew the assassination was a important, shocking, and sad. But, I did not fully understand the impact of Martin Luther King and Civil Rights Movement.
     I was influenced by my surroundings and upbringing. The world was more racially segregated than I knew or suspected. I was under the naïve belief that after the Civil War, everyone had the same chances and opportunities. I was a Boy Scout, after all. I was also the recipient, directly or indirectly, of J. Edgar Hoover’s campaign to paint King as a anti-American and a communist. I had only recently fully understood what communism was supposed to be and how the Soviets usurped it. It was the beginning of an awakening and enlightenment that lasts to this day.
      I actually blogged twice on Martin Luther King on the holiday that commemorates his birth:

• Reflections: Martin Luther King Day
• January 21, 2013

     Perhaps the impact came when I read the following poem from Haki Madubhubuti, nee Don L. Lee, that helped me see this more from the Black perspective and which resonated very well with my Armenian perspective.

Assassination

     it was wild.
     the bullet hit high.

          (the throat-neck)

     &from everywhere:

          the motel, from under blushes and cars,
          from around corners and across streets,
          out of the garbage cans and from rat holes
          in the earth

     they came running.
     with
     guns
     drawn
     they came running

toward the King--

          all of them
          fast and sure--

     as if
     the King
     was going to fire back.
     they came running,
     fast and sure,
     in the
     wrong
     direction.