dijous, de maig 25, 2006

will secret brussels save our sundays?

There's something about lazy Sunday afternoons. I don't like them. The impending feeling that you're supposed to be doing something - anything - because tomorrow you won't be in a position to do something - anything - because you'll be at work all day is unsettling and uncomfortable. I always feel I'm wasting my time even when I'm not or haven't actually got anything better to do.

But last Sunday was a good one. I woke up late, successfully defeating my apparently ingrained urge to wake up and be productive. We later went for a buffet lunch at a Thai restaurant next to the Palais de Justice where I made sure (read politely bullied) my girlfriend and I overate to avoid the tyranny of the kitchen later that evening. After that we went to Waterstone's and bought some books, La Libre Belgique and The Wire.

I strongly recommend one of the books I bought to anyone who lives in Brussels or has an interest in our city.

It's called Secret Brussels (publisher: Editions Jonglez).

The authors of this book found an astounding number of those hidden gems which eccentric architects or singular bricoleurs-cum-artists had worked on in the last few centuries and successive waves of people have left as a testament to the inventive, healthy eccentricity of the past residents of the city.

I had previously discovered a few myself. I remember trying to enter the 1960s timewarp of a "love hotel", complete with old Behringer speakers blaring out the Love Boat theme, in rue du Berger (near the Porte de Namur; next to Nadine) and have always, and not-so-secretly, dreamt I could afford to buy and restore the Maison Saint-Cyr in Place Ambiorix.

Some places are, however, new to me - the Mupdofer, a private museum of rail memorabilia so obscure that it hasn't even got opening hours - just call and hope someone will be there. Some are even stranger: the lift at the Museum of Modern Art, the former power station of the Société des Tramways Bruxelloises, the Volkswagen factory in Forest, the Musée des Egouts (Sewers Museum) or the toilets of the Belga Queen restaurant for starters. These and a few others will hopefully be just the ticket to get rid of the pressure of having to make the most out of your Sunday. After all - spending the day staring at truly surreal architecture or broken down colonial machinery rather than doing useful, mundane chores such as shopping for food or hoovering won't reduce your time-wasting guilt or procrastination, but at least they'll make your Sundays more enjoyable!

--

lang:en - cat:brue

divendres, de maig 19, 2006

Philip Jeck = saudade for the (small) masses?

Walking through the Zoo de l'Orangerie in Strasbourg, Philip Jeck and I were not alone.

His 'Some pennies' (from "7") resonated in my headphones and in the activities of the Italian pensioners who had just parked their tour bus a few meters outside the back entrance and were now busy taking photos of the tropical birds in the cage to their left. The birds themselves were busy doing what they do best - chirping and hopping tensely from one steel bar to the other. The murmur of transposed electronics and damaged records in my headphones was in some way similar to (but, disappointingly, not exactly like) the errantly geometric way Maltese lawyers walk.


The temporality, too, of both activities was complimentary. Jeck's music is a slideshow, if you want, of old records. It's an analogon of reality and so are the pensioners photos. This is the pointless beauty of Jeck's music. His music isn't just the showing of old photos (records) in a given sequence, but what makes it special is the spectra of temporality itself; of times gone by which probably never existed and of the temporal beauty of old, yellowing photos superseding the image itself. Hmm... or should that be sepiaing rather than yellowing?


Anyway - in my opinion his music isn't just music. It's a strategy; an emotionally manipulative technique to recall past times which all of us think we remember, but none of us ever lived the way he suggests we did.


--

lang:en - cat:muse



dijous, de maig 11, 2006

ça y est

L-ezamijiet lesti!

Dan iz-zmien taghni cans nirrifletti fuq l-utitilità tal-blogg. Mhux l-utilità tal-blogg ghal haddiehor ghax meta xi hadd qed jibbloggja generalment qieghed jibbloggja minn jeddu bla hadd ma talbu (jew halsu!) tispicca ma tantx tinkwieta dwar haddiehor u ssir kemmxejn egoist.

Ser nibqa nibbloggja - hekk kif ili naghmel kwazi sentejn (kemm il-LJ u kemm hawn) imma mhux ser inzid il-posts. Ikun hemm bzonn bloggata xi minn daqqiet, imma bhala utilità kreattiva (i.e. x'qed jiehu minnha haddiehor) forsi ahjar il-hin tieghi nuzah fuq il-progetti l-ohra tieghi.


Aaaa wicc ta' xadina

Ghal min, bhali, juza l-Firefox nikkunsiljalu li jnizzel estensjoni jisimha Greasemonkey. Dan ix-xadin ihallik tghaffeg u thawwad fl-iskripts tas-siti hekk kif jghaffeg u jhawwad Bonobo li jispicca msakkar lejl fil-mahzen ta' Banana Joe. Studjawh naqra... mhux iebes biex tuzah daqs kemm jidher.


X'inhu gej...

Ser nirridisinja l-blogg, ser nikkrea sit biex naghqad il-hafna progetti li qed nahdem fuqhom... fost dawn il-progetti (ghal min hu interessat) hemm:

- Ridisinn tal-blogg: ser ikun bilingwu u ser juza tags jew kategoriji. Irridu dak li jkun jista' jaghzel li jaqra mhux biss dwar it-tema imma jaghzel. Bicca xoghol tal-qaddisin, jew xoghol mignun (boulot fou) kif jghidu hawn ghax irrid nara kif ser naghmel biex naghqad il-hafna komunitajiet li jien parti minnhom (il-bloggeja, il-bloggejja tal-Benelux, ix-xena tal-musika esperimentali, bloggejja minn brussell, bloggejja dwar films u arkitettura, ecc) f'blogg wiehed. Ser narkivja l-bloggs il-qodma u naghlaq dawk il-hafna kaxxi li ftaht, u nispicca dawk il-hafna truf li dejjem nibda u qatt ma nlesti.

- Traduzzjoni (sotottitoli) ghall-Malti tal-films ta' Chris Marker. Ser nibda (anzi... bdejt il-bierah) b'La Jetée u inkompli b'Sans Soleil (il-film favorit tieghi mill-films kollha li qatt ghamel Marker). Ser ikunu f'format .srt - iggifieri jahdmu fuq kwalunkwe verzjoni tal-film - l-aqwa li jkun DivX

- Qed nipprepara lista ta' kull festival ta' muzika esperimentali li hawn fl-Ewropa. Kwazi lestejt. Tkun disponibbli fuq is-sit la nlestiha.

- (Possibilment) traduzzjoni lejn il-Malti ta' ktieb wiehed ta' Philippe Delerm. Din li tkellimt ma' Pierre u David. Sa fejn naf jien l-ebda ktieb minn tieghu ma gie tradott lejn l-Ingliz. Issa nara kif inhossni nittraducih ghall-Malti u filkas forsi nikkunsidra nittraduci l-kotba tieghu lejn l-Ingliz. Ma nafx nohorgux bhala ktieb jew bhala bloggata. Nixtieq naghmel

Umbaghad hemm affarijiet personali...
- jien u Anita nixtiequ ngorru (jew nimmuwvjaw) lejn St-Gilles jew ic-centru (anke Ixelles tajjeb). Kollox f'waqtu.
- Daqshekk ufficju wahdi. Ser ikolli naqsam ufficju ma' haddiehor minn Gunju. Forsi ma tidhirx xi tragedja din imma ghal xi hadd territorjali daqshi dan jirrapresenta mument ikrah hafna fil-hajja professjonali tieghu.
- ecc


Pirandello woz 'ere

Che Malta abbia avuto un posto particolare nel cuore di Luigi Pirandello risulta anche dal fatto che il primo biografo dell'autore, Federico Vittore Nardelli, fornisce una personale descrizione dell'Isola, nutrita però di elementi tratti dalla rielaborazione pirandelliana del racconto materno:

L'isola, tu la vedi ancor oggi turrita e glabra, con un dissenso evidentissimo tra l'aspetto esteriore e la creta intima. Chi v'arrivi dal mare scorge uno scenario di muraglie grige, come la chiusa di giardini pensili favolosi; e tra gli alti ripari penetrando nell'insenature cilestri approda al cuore stesso delle terre.