Anamelech

Anamelech - bearer of ill news. An obscure demon.
Anamelech - was worshipped at Sepharvahim, a town of the Assyrians.
Anamelech - reveals himself in the shape of a quail.
Anamelech - his name, we are told, signified a "good king".
Anamelech - some declare that this demon was the moon, as Andramalech is the sun.
Anamelech - today, the son of a bitch paid me a visit.

Tommy

Today I met Tommy. Tommy, for a few years, lived where I grew up.

I grew up in Ta’ Giorni, a government housing estate in St. Julian’s. The housing estate is surrounded by the old quarters of St. Julian’s on one side and Ta Giorni Heights on the other. In the former lived the real Giljanizi, in the latter those that had the money to buy a nice piece of land and settle with tal-pepe. In the middle there was us, a bunch of low to middle class families that managed to get hold of a government flat or house. Most of those who lived in government houses stayed there while those who lived in flats and had built up a good career for themselves left, leaving a vacant space which would soon be filled by others.

Tommy’s family wasn’t one of the early settlers in Ta’ Giorni. They replaced someone. I don’t remember which block of flats they lived in but I know that they came from Valletta. Tommy was a little older than most of us and he was what one today would call a bully. He was bigger than average, he swore, he smoked and he was always fighting and bullying other kids. He had his little gang of rascals, always running around with him, vandalising and terrorising. After a few months that he came to St. Julian’s, Tommy was king.

I cannot say that I was bullied when I was young, not even by Tommy. I was always big enough to stand on my own two feet and intelligent enough to stay away from people like him. Most of my friends weren’t that lucky. I remember once he stole a girl’s hair band threw the band in the middle of the road and peed on it. Another time his gang stole someone’s bike and hid it somewhere, with the poor kid in tears trying to explain to his mother that he does not know where he left his bike (or else his teeth would be knocked out).

Tommy today was very kind to me. He let me park my car in those 100sq.m. he controls. In his own way Tommy is still king, he is king of his own parking lot. Tommy, today, is a parking attendant.

Finally

Finally I managed to force myself to start work on my next exhibition. Well not exactly, I was commissioned to make a painting for del Borgo, and managed to finish it before the official opening, which is tomorrow. Forcing myself to paint puts me in the right frame of mind to continue work. Today I have planned my first couple of paintings for the exhibition and made a series of studies for the first. I am not one of those artists (if I might call myself so) that all he has to do is sit down and wait for inspiration to knock on his door. I have to work hard and prepare my work diligently. Only a small percentage of my work is the result of inspiration, most of it is the result of perspiration. How true Alfred Chircop was!

On a different note I noticed that other bloggers too are using their blog to present their artistic work. I very much appreciated Antoine Cassar’s multi lingual poem found here and Archibald’ song found here. Good work guys.

Artissa

Just a small note to inform those of you who might be interested that the auction at auctions.artissa.com will close tonight at 20:00. The auction, organised by Friends of St. Luke's Hospital Foundation and Lions Club Valletta seems to be the first of its kind, locally, and in my opinion quite a success.

Furthermore the Artissa guys are doing a terrific job to promote Maltese Art (whatever that might be). At the moment there are 23 galleries of local artists or artists with local connections and 2 collective galleries online. The least we all could do is spread the word around.

Brag

Today I have been woken up by an sms from a friend of mine, “Cefai ara it-Times, IM Beck”. Since I rarely buy newspapers on a Saturday, (I follow my news mostly on the net) I had to get out of bed, dress up, walk 100m buy the newspapers all the while thinking why did IM Beck mention me in his article. In fact he did not. He mentioned del Borgo, which I designed and that’s why I’m blogging and bragging about it. I have been bragging about it all day.

He made one of the most beautiful comments I have ever read regarding my work and coming from bocca, who usually is very critical about everything is quite satisfying. About del Borgo he wrote “where the old and modern have been married to a degree of perfection I hadn’t thought was possible”.

He made my day.

Terrorism

50+ dead, 700 injured.
50 - mothers, fathers, sons, daughters.
As soon as I heard the news I rushed home to watch cnn/bbc/sky/euronews. Death, destruction, pain. Then I remembered of an essay by Ronald Harvey, found the book and read it…….

“One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter - a truism too often ignored. To the Arabs the Israelis are terrorists, and their own men freedom fighters. To the Israelis the Arabs are terrorists, and so it goes on. If beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, so does terrorism. Pascal summed it up:
'Why do you kill me?'
'Well, don’t you live on the other side of the water? If you lived on this side, my friend, I should be a murderer, and it would be wrong to kill you like this. But since you live on the other side, I am a brave man and it is right.'

And yet terrorist and freedom fighter are not really the same under different names. What distinguishes one from the other? A freedom fighter who kills or threatens to kill innocent, unarmed people in his attempt to free his country is a terrorist. If he confines his threats and actions to the armed forces and government of his country's oppressors he's no terrorist. Fighting between fighters is not terrorism, but threats, abduction and the killing or wounding of civilians or unarmed people most certainly is. The problem is, often, how to separate the innocent from the involved, the unarmed from the armed and, consequently, freedom fighting often degenerates into terrorism……. Terrorism is a cancer arising out of resentment; frustration and a feeling of injustice. People, who do not so suffer, rarely breed terrorists.”
“Our Fragmented World” (Green Books 1988)

But how about our share of responsibility? Are we responsible for our governments’ actions and decisions? Is there anything like State Terrorism? According to iraqbodycount.net, while I’m writing this, there are between 22000 and 26000 Civilians reported killed by the military intervention in Iraq. Are we so blind as not to see that all these killings breed terrorism? Aren’t there any innocent people in those numbers, or are they all criminals and terrorists?

Would this justify the bombings in London? Of course not. How could you ever explain to that little girl that her daddy will not come home tonight, or any other night, since Bush, Blair and others decided to invade Iraq because of the threat of weapons that do not even exist? How could you ever explain to that Muslim mother, whose son was traveling on that train, that he has been killed in the name of the same Allah whom he so believed in?

And yet, would humanity ever learn…..I doubt it will.

Il-Parrukkier

Ftit tal-granet ilu kelli diskussjoni frivola ma hbieb tieghi fuq id-differenza bejn arti u sena. Jien tal-fehma li dak kollu li ghandu x’jaqsam ma disinn ghal skop, hu sena u mhux arti. Ha nispjega ruhi. Jekk tiddisinja bicca ghamara, dik sena. Il-process tad-disinn jinkludi ukoll idea cara ta kif il-prodott irid isir, u ghalhekk nikkunsidrha sena. Arti, hi dik li l-iskop mhux kreazzjoni ta prodott izda ta sensazzjoni. Pittura hi arti mhux ghax hi pittura izda minhabba is-sensazzjoni li tnissel fik. Ghalkemm hafna drabi hu difficli li taqta linja, nemmen li hu importanti li din id-distinzjoni issir. Meta disinn jigi ikkunsidrat bhala arti, ir-rizultat dejjem ikun wiehed fjakk. Meta zarbun ikun sabih biss skomdu mhux disinn tajjeb, meta bus shelter tkun sabiha izda ma tipprotegik minn xejn, mhi shelter xejn etc. Ninharaq meta nara disinjaturi li jippruvaw jaghtu l-impressjoni li xogholhom hu arti minnflok jirreferu ghal xogholhom bhala sena. L-aqwa disinjaturi fl-istorja tal-bniedem ma kienux Dolce e Gabbana jew Valentino, izda dawk li holqu il-furketta, is-sikkina, il-buttuna, iz-zipp, etc u miljunelf haga ohra li nuzaw kuljum. Nies li hadd ma jaf min huma. Ninharaq ukoll meta niftakar li f’dan il-pajjiz ghalaqna l-iskejjel tas-snajja minflok investejna fihom.......biss dan argument iehor.

L-akbar ezempju ta nies tas-sena li jisthu jghidu li huma tali huma il-parukkiera. Niftakar meta kont ghadni tfal kont immur ma nannuwi kull filghodu ghand il-parrukier. Kien iqaxxarlu il-lehja, jaqtaghlu xaghru, iberfirlu is-suf ta ghajnejh, widnejh u imniehru. Meta jlesti, thallilu xi haga tal-flus u barra bid-daqq. Dak kien bniedem kburi li hu parukkier. Illum tmur ghand Hair Dresser jew Hair stylist jew Hair Designer etc. u hadd minnhom ma jqis ruhu parukkier. X’hemm hazin li tikkonsidra lilek innifsek parukkier u twahhal tabella mal-bieb li tghid Toni u Gajju – Parukkiera. Nahseb nista nehodha kontra il-parukkiera ghax ma ghadx fadalli wisq xaghar, u ghalhekk Hair Dresser m' ghadnix nuza.

1 minn 13

Skond it-Times tal-llum, kull sena tul dawn l-ahhar ghaxar snin kien hemm incidenti relatati ma kmamar tan-nar. B’kollox 28 incident u 11-il ruh mejta, kwazi 3 incidenti u aktar minn mejjet fis-sena. Kull sena, wahda minn kull 13-il kamra ikollha incident.

Informazzjoni nieqsa f’dan kollu hi x’jikkawza dawn l-incidenti. Ma jezistux sistemi ta kontroll? Certu tahlit hu perikoluz? Is-shana u l-umdita ta pajjizna?

Tghid tezisti din l-informazzjoni?

Bhas-soltu issa nghamlu ftit storbju imbaghad ninsew kollox.

Irkant

U issa ftit sekondi ta pubblicita.........

Il-Friends of St. Lukes Hospital Foundation flimkien ma l-Lions Club Valletta qed jorganizzaw irkant ta pitturi minn diversi artisti Maltin. Min hu interessat jixtri xi pittura, jista jibbidja fuq auctions.artissa.com. Ghal aktar informazzjoni ghatu daqqa t'ghajn lil Artissa.com.

Progetti

Kienet gimgha ta decizjonijiet. Fost-il hafna irrelevanti, hadt tnejn li ha jzommuni okkupat sew dawn ix-xhur li gejjin.

1. fil-hdax ta Novembru ser niftah it-tieni ezebizzjoni tieghi. Ghalkemm forsi ghadu kmieni biex nibda indoqq it-trumbetti, il-post diga ibbukjat. Ser nghamilha f’del Borgo Wine Bar, Birgu.
2. ha nibda progett daqsxejn ambizzjuz.....irrid naghmel dizzjunarju ta kliem tekniku, bl-ingliz u mhux, li jintuza fl-industrija. Kollezzjoni ta kliem imbiccer u mfarrak li sab ruhu intuzat u abbuzat mill-haddiema Maltin. Ezempji:
   Tabella tal-kawxun – caution sign
   Paccwikk – Patch work
   Spakxin – inspection box
   

Hafna forsi jahsbu li din xi cajta. Hafna kliem li illum jintuzaw regolari fil-lingwa maltija ghandhom origini simili, bhal accjomu, cigcifogu, gakbin etc. Kull min jahseb li jista jghin, merhba bih.