Tag: Lebanon

Chris Khatsch, reading and smoking a cigar

Have a Cigar: Quorum Classic Double Gordo

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Name: Quorum Classic Double Gordo

Country: Nicaragua

Shape: Parejo

Size: Gordo (6 inches x 60)

Strength: Full

This isn’t the first cigar I ever had, but it’s the first cigar I really enjoyed smoking.

Accompanied by a glass of Laphroaig 10, I smoked this Quorum Classic Double Gordo while reading on the balcony of the hotel room at InterContinental Mzaar.

A cool breeze caressed me sporadically as the dusk fell slowly. As I waited for my fiancée to get dressed for her birthday party, I nursed my drink and smoked my cigar like a general who had just won a war.

The book I was reading was Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. “We covet knowledge merely because we covet enjoyment,” I read. And I immediately smiled. The Laphroaig was working. Though that was surely not what Rousseau meant when he was writing it, his words are especially true when it comes to single malts and cigars, I thought. We desire knowledge because we desire a more pleasurable experience. Knowledge massively enhances the taste. The more you learn about single malts and cigars, the better they taste.

Half the taste is the story, and consuming stories makes us human.

This six inch Gordo I was smoking lasted for about an hour. And when it was finally done, I enjoyed its aftertaste for a moment before washing my mouth with another dram of whisky.

If I ever become a full-time cigar aficionado, you can say that this was the turning point. My cigar journey starts here.

Quorum Classic is an affordable and tasty cigar. I have one on my desk as we speak, and I know that I’ll light it very soon.

I Despise the Civil War Generation

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“How can we free ourselves from being dominated by people from the past who still retain a shadow of power in the world of space, without soiling ourselves by coming into contact with their lives (we can use the soap of word-creation), and leave them to drown in the destiny they have earned for themselves, that of malicious termites?” —from “Subjects for Discussion” by Velimir Khlebnikov
——
Why do we have old men running the country?
You know, I despise the civil war generation.

When they were young
and the world was theirs,
they chose to slaughter each other.

Our parents and grandparents:
murderers, rapists, thieves,
propagandists, cowards,
idiots.

And the warlords they used to worship
still sit on thrones made of blood and feces.

I don’t care what they stood for.
I don’t care what they fought for.
Obviously, they failed
as I see no victors.

I would rather have
a coder or a gamer run the country.
A bartender or a young Uber driver would do, too.
Not food for worms.

The present — today — is the “future” that the civil war generation built.
This is their future.
Our future is tomorrow.
And tomorrow is a party which they wont — and cannot — attend.
(They’ll be bribing the ferryman
and drinking from Lethe.)

Their time is up, brothers and sisters.
Don’t let them guide you, advise you, teach you.
Because if they do, history will repeat itself.
Their wisdom is as valuable as our Lira.

So I say to you,
Respect your parents and grandparents, yeah,
but make sure you destroy the walls of hate that they have built.
You have to teach them because they cannot see.
The lenses they wear are old and dusty.

They must be reminded that the consequences of today
come from the mistakes of the past.
They are guilty.

The rewards of tomorrow will sprout
from the solutions of today.
And it’s up to you.
You.

Old men!
“We have broken the locks and see what your freight cars contain: tombstones for the young.”
——
Քեզ պէտք է հոգեփոխուել, իսկ դա նշանակում է, թէ դու պիտի դառնաս հակապատկերը հայրերիդ:
— Գարեգին Նժդեհ

November 26, 2020: Untitled

Chris Khatsch1 Comment

It’s the need to say something
that makes me want to write.

However, the need to say something
doesn’t necessarily mean that I have anything to say.
It’s been almost a year since I last produced a piece —
a short story — that I thought was good.

Since March, my mind has been deteriorating.
I have been deteriorating.

It hasn’t been a good year, and it all started late last year.
A pseudo-revolution in Lebanon back in October 2019.
I believed in it and was part of it,
but it turned out to be nothing but noise!
Then, as 2020 began, Lebanon defaulted on its debts.
Covid-19 became a pandemic soon after.
Beirut’s port exploded on August 4.
The Nagorno-Karabakh war began on September 27
and ended on November 10 with Armenia losing.
Yes, a bad year for the world,
a horrible year for a Lebanese-Armenian like me.

Then, last Wednesday, on November 18, my grandmother died,
and we buried her where we had buried
my father and my grandfather less than two years ago.

And here I am at my desk now,
trying to work,
to live a normal life.

I want to write about something, and there are
so many things to write about.
But I have nothing to say.
Yet.

My question is:
How can I get rid of this brain fog?
It came once and never left.