Leo Chaloukian: All the way to Tinseltown - Armenian Reporter

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Mapping Armenian literature in the diaspora n Continued from page C5 “It’s necessary to create a spiritual homeland and think like an ‘Armenian’ in all these foreign countries, which have served as our source of despair and great opportunities at the same time.” menian, on foreign soil? What does it mean to live in the absence of the father, the patria, and paternal law? Recognizing their position as both witnesses and survivors, the writers of Menk strive to bring to language the destruction of order, and, through that telling, seek to gather, regroup, and thus repair the dispersion. Bringing the Catastrophe and the subsequent collapse of order to language means launching a new literature that testifies to the experience of the aftermath. And launching a new literature means proclaiming the old literary traditions dead. As a result, the writers of Menk take a confrontational stance against the writers of the previous generation, accusing them of showing a false closeness to the cultures of the West. They blatantly blame the pre-Genocide writers for their present calamitous situation, believing that they could have prevented their current crisis of identity if they had been armed with the awareness of a genuinely Armenian literary tradition. Nartuni writes, “We will once again come forth in order to reveal the impoverishment of those writers who came to Europe and sold us imitation Western goods. Our political failure is the result of a false literary orientation. It was our old literature, which came from Europe, that ruined our home. Now we’re in Europe and every day we see where those goods came from.” Here Nartuni presents his position against the writers of the previous generations as one of the foundational ideas characterizing Menk, indicating that disrupting the continuity of pre-war traditions essentially gives way to the group’s formation. In his article titled “Menk,” Shahnur attempts to explain Menk’s platform and echoes Nartuni’s aforementioned criticism of the previous generation by writing, “In their work, one could find poor, miniature replicas of all kinds of literary manifestos taken from big nations.” Drafting this article in response to some surviving critics of the previous generation who claimed that Menk had no clear platform, Shahnur denounces the work produced by earlier generations and claims them to be void of originality. So, what was to be the “new” literature’s relationship with the West? During the first decades of the 20th century, Paris witnesses multiple artistic and literary movements, which create a certain lively and dynamic atmosphere within social circles. Though familiar with their contemporary literary trends, Menk writers strive hard to reject these influences on the form of their Armenian-language prose. Simultaneously, they make a conscious effort to distinguish themselves from the previous generation of writers, particularly by holding a de-centered view of world literature. Nartuni writes, “What a great testament of the ignorance of our past writers, who thought of French literature as universal and instructed it to us as such. No, we want to get to know the literature of all nations…” Their displaced and exilic condition emphasizes the distance and alienation that exists between Armenians and the French and erases French literature’s appeal as universal, creating a space for the literature that they produce from the peripheries of French culture. Even in considering a comprehensive view of world literature, one that accounts for literary production of both large and small nations and peoples, the question of belonging remains a complicated issue for French-Armenian writers. Being a part of a dispersed people and having lost the land that may justify their existence as an independent nation, the writers of Menk try to establish their “new” literature on a symbolic soil. Sarafian writes, “It’s necessary to create a spiritual homeland and think like an ‘Armenian’ in all these foreign countries, which have served as our source of despair and great opportunities at the same time.” According to Sarafian, literature will be a means for the realization of a spiritual homeland, which is situated on foreign soil, yet simultaneously saves the displaced Armenian culture from assimilating into those very lands. Thus, for the first time, Armenian literature gains the function of ensuring the preservation, or more precisely the perseverance, of Armenian culture. Yet the establishment of a spiritual homeland through literature does not entail a return to the past or a revival of notions of cultural purity. Rather, the generation of Menk turns its focus to the present. For the Menk writers, Armenianness comes to mean the current Armenian immigrant condition. The “new” literature serves a testimonial function and strives to record the immigrant population’s collective experience in face of extinction, thus presenting a new kind of writing that belongs to the stateless realm of diaspora. Shahnur writes, “… I jump from a social issue to a national one, because for us today, at this moment of crisis, there need not exist anything aside from the preservation of the Armenian people. For us, terms like ‘pre-war bohemian’ have no significance. Social issues, humanity, working class… these, before all else, mean… all eyes toward Armenians.” This means giving literature an inward gaze: a role of internal reflection, in order to begin a period of self-awareness. For the writers of Menk, literature offers a framework within which it will be possible to record the experience of the Catastrophe’s aftermath and at the same time forge a collective memory regarding that experience. Because Menk presents its goals as delayed or postponed objectives that would find definition in time, much of the criticism by contemporaries focuses on the group’s lack of a clear “platform” or ideology. In reality, both the distant objectives and the immediate goals of the group are never realized. The call for solidarity and cooperation as an immediately attainable aim does not reach as far as “all corners of the world.” It does serve to group the most prominent of the young, Parisian writers of the time, allowing later critics to refer to the group as “The Paris Boys.” Having shared locality and a desire to produce literature in the Armenian language as their sole common traits, the writers of Menk find it difficult to develop a uniform group identity. The group does not survive beyond its short-lived existence of two years, during which time it holds multiple informal meetings and publishes five issues of its journal. Its legacy, on the other hand, seems ever so relevant to today’s questions regarding the possibility of Armenian literature in the diaspora. f Ahead in this series from Talar Chahinian: Part 2: Beirut and the Middle East as the post–World War II intellectual center of the diaspora Part 3: English-language genocide and identity literature of North America 1970s and onward Part 4: Armenian language and literature as it is represented in American academia (the emergence of Armenian studies programs) Part 5: Archives and collections Part 6: Publication and publishing houses the current Los Angeles scene C8 Armenian Reporter Arts & Culture September 20, 2008
From farm town to Tinseltown Film-sound innovator Leo Chaloukian looks back at his start in the business by Alejandro Guzmán HOLLYWOOD, Calif. – It’s hard to imagine that a distinguished sound executive, who was once owner and chief executive of Hollywood’s premier sound-recording company, began his journey milking dairy cows and chasing chickens on a farm in Agoura Hills, California. But it’s true, and Leo Chaloukian will be glad to tell you all about his path to success. To date, he and his staff have over 50 Emmy nominations, 42 Emmy Awards, and an Oscar for Best Achievement in Sound for the motion picture Platoon under their belts. Chaloukian has been behind the scenes of blockbuster titles like The Bourne Ultimatum, Babel, Kingdom of Heaven, and Crash, just to name a few. Currently he serves as vice-president of business development at Ascent Media Group’s Creative Sound Services division. Throughout his career in sound recording for production powerhouses Paramount and 20th Century Fox, Chaloukian mastered new ways to synchronize audiotape faster, and innovated tools such as extendable fish poles, which are used to hold microphones just above and out of the camera’s view to pick up sound. Leo Chaloukian working at his office in Hollywood. Photo: Alejandro Guzmán. Far from Hollywood Chaloukian was born in Detroit. The family moved to Chicago when he was just a small boy, and he recalls a happy Midwest childhood. While talking with Chaloukian at his 11th-floor office on the corner of Hollywood and La Brea, a look of nostalgia takes over his face. He begins by describing his parents – as nice, quiet people. “They were good parents,” he says. “Sure, I got spanked a few times, but it must’ve been because I was bad.” Primarily, he recalls them being quiet. He believes the main reason his parents kept to themselves was that they had been through some traumatic experiences. Both his mother, Mary, and father, Harry, had been smuggled out of Turkey to escape persecution during the Armenian Genocide. Staying would have meant certain death. His father, Chaloukian recalls, was especially quiet. It could’ve had something to do with both his brothers and one sister having been murdered by the Turks. Chaloukian’s mother ended up in New York via Greece and Argentina. “That’s where they met,” Chaloukian says of his parents. “[After being] smuggled out, my father arrived on a ship in New York.” In Chicago, the elder Chaloukian worked for an ice cream company as a teamster, delivering packages, and the family was doing well. But eventually the Chaloukians moved to California, hoping that Mary, who was ill, could benefit from the warmer climate. The family moved in with Mary’s sister at the latter’s ranch in Agoura Hills, just west of the San Fernando Valley. This was the young Chaloukian’s first taste of the California lifestyle – not exactly what one would expect from Los Angeles. “I became a cowboy overnight,” he recalls. “All I know is, next thing I’m on a ranch with Levis and cowboy boots.” He remembers working hard on the farm, waking up early and milking cows. Indeed, it seemed that he was destined to be a farmer. “The 40s were a very interesting part of my life,” Chaloukian says. “I learned a great deal about plumbing, cattle, and fixing things myself. I even joined the Future Farmers of America” an organization, renamed in 1988 as the National FFA Organization, that promotes youth education in agriculture. Taking chances But then things took an unexpected turn. Chaloukian’s father got a job at MGM and once again the family was on the move, this time to Hollywood. Chaloukian’s life took another dramatic turn when he joined the armed forces at 18. After spending time in Pearl Harbor, he was stationed in the South Pacific on a mine-sweeping expedition aboard a submarine. He recalls the time he and his comrades had to clear up vast mine fields around Guam, Saipan, and the Philippines. After fulfilling his duties, Chaloukian returned home in 1947 and began working for the jewelry store that had employed him before he left for military duty. One day, he went to visit a friend at work, at Ryder Sound Services. “The more I looked around, the more I thought about the people working around me at my job and decided I didn’t want to end up like them,” Chaloukian remembers. He went on to get a job at Ryder Sound Services, in 1955. But it was neither easy nor glamorous. He worked nights for three and half years, making coffee, scrubbing toilets, and preparing sandwiches. Only on Sundays could he spend time with the family. Chaloukian was eventually promoted to sound technician. Then, in 1965, he became vice-president, general manager, and a partner in the company. The big time Loren Ryder, the owner, took a liking to Chaloukian and offered him 10 percent of the company. Chaloukian gradually acquired increasingly larger stakes in the business until he finally bought it in 1976. At the time of the sale, however, Chaloukian was short $12,000. So Ryder gave him four checks, explaining that two were gifts from Ryder to Chaloukian, and the other two were from Ryder’s wife for Chaloukian’s spouse. Each check was for $4,000. “They don’t have anyone like that anymore,” Chaloukian says, referring to the Ryders’ extraordinary generosity. Talking about his own sale of the company in 1997, Chaloukian emphasizes that it happened accidentally. At the time, he was renting out studios to the Soundelux Entertainment Group, which needed more and more space. Eventually, Chaloukian told Soundelux, “The way you’re going, why don’t you just buy me out?” He adds, “I was joking, but they took me seriously.” The sale saved Chaloukian a $4.5 million upgrade to digital sound equipment. Ironically, he had helped revolutionize sound recording when he was a newbie at Ryder. After the sale, Chaloukian stayed on as Soundelux’s senior vice-president. In 2000, John Malone’s Liberty Media Group acquired Soundelux – now known as Ascent Media Group’s Creative Sound Services division. Once again, Chaloukian stayed on as a top executive. “It was only supposed to be for six months… It ended up being 11 years,” he says, reflecting on his tenure. Chaloukian does plan on retiring soon. Looking back at his long road to success, he fondly remembers the man who believed in him and gave him his first major break. “Ryder trusted me with his life,” he says. “He left me in charge of everything. It was one hell of a relationship. He looked at me as his adopted son and treated me that way. In return, I treated him like a father.” Chaloukian has been happily married to his wife, Virginia, for 57 years. He has a son, a daughter, five grandchildren, and two great grandsons. f Armenian Reporter Arts & Culture September 20, 2008 C9
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Leo Chaloukian: All the way to Tinseltown - Armenian Reporter

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