THE HYE-PHEN

made with love ֍ ⟩⟩ for a better digital / queer / armenian future  ❀╱╲╱╲❀

Armenianness Is Fractal

Armenianness Is Fractal

“Clouds are not spheres, Mountains are not cones, Coastlines are not circles, And bark is not smooth, Nor does lightning travel in a straight line.”   ― Benoît B. Mandelbrot Reality is far less smooth than we’d like to believe. In our quest to represent complex...
The New Subdeacon

The New Subdeacon

I have not been fond of the Americans I have met. Most of the brothers in the Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem are from the Republic of Armenia, with a small number from Turkey and Europe. I myself was sent here from the town of Goris at fourteen.  Goris is not far from...
And When You Laugh, Laugh Like Hell

And When You Laugh, Laugh Like Hell

The Soviet era takes space in your home in the form of comic relief. It blares from your iPad each morning through a pipe-smoking wolf in Ну,погоди (2) and a sirening sing-song sound of Фильм, Фильм,Фильм (3). Your niece is rewatching the ‘68 depictions of Soviet...
An Open Letter to My Fellow Armenians About Black Lives

An Open Letter to My Fellow Armenians About Black Lives

Hyer jan, tzavneret tanem,   Look, I get it, it’s not easy speaking to your family about race. It is only very recently that we have been forced to examine the anti-blackness within our own people. And boy, is there a lot of it. And boy, is it uncomfortable.   Please,...