dijous, de juny 22, 2006

on superficiality and blérot

Anita and I are flat-hunting at the moment. We like Schaerbeek but just need a change I guess.

Yesterday's apartment in St-Gilles looked very promising. A semi-art nouveau block of apartments designed by none other the master of tasteful squiggliness Ernest Blérot.

Blérot definitely put his soul into producing a patina of subdued opulence. The apartment was small but good enough for us. Just one (major) problem: the kitchen/bathroom. Apartments with a bath installed in the kitchen aren't rare in old Brussels apartment blocks but they usually have some sort of wall or divider of some sort between the two.

This one didn't. You could literally stand in the bath, butt naked with shampoo on your hair (and on your chest hair if you're particularly hairy) and fry some sardines or prepare a sunday roast. Practical, but aesthetically - and logistically - strange.

The thing that struck me the most was how superficial the building was. Couldn't he have spared five minutes from his recurrent thoughts on stone noodling, squiggles and outweirding Victor Horta to ask the builders to build a wall between the two? I'm an upholder of the virtues of superficiality. I think too many people disregard what seems to be superficial to get to the internal part, losing an important part of the object or subject itself in the process. I happen to like surfaces and surfaces condition my choices as much as much as the actual content does, but in some way this Blérot building went too far considering external factors rather than what will actually be in the building itself. Or maybe it's a bold aesthetic statement I didn't quite understand. Maybe since Victor Horta was reputedly an eccentric heavy drug user (stories on how an arsenal of marijuana, opium and magic mushrooms were found in his cellar after his death abound) and Blérot was just a quiet catholic, middle-class architect he felt he just had to outweird him in some other way.

A couple (Brussels apartment viewing is like a bit like an offbeat auction... you're never alone in the apartment) just walked in, recoiled in horror at this odd setup and walked out again without uttering a single word. I'm reasonably sure Blérot would have been amused...

diumenge, de juny 18, 2006

kemm ahna sbieh min jaf jarana...

Tort tieghek! Tieghek!!


--

lang:mt - cat:genm

dissabte, de juny 10, 2006

magico gabriel!

Wahda mir-ragunijiet ghalfejn nixtieq ninvesti f'satellita jekk Anita u jien innizlu l-ankri fi Brussell huma l-istazzjonijiet regjonali taljani. Il-qamel li ssib inkredibbli u jiggrantilek siegha zmien... m'inix wahdi f'dan il-godiment pervers.

Minn zmien Mai Dire TV u qabel kien hemm qellieba li meta sabu dawn il-magi sabu rwiehhom imsahhra. Din hi probabbilment iktar kawza tal-valur komiku tas-shahar (li issibhom, flimkien mat-telebejgh, fuq kwazi kull stazzjon regjonali taljan filghodu) milli tal-bravura kartomantika taghhom. Isem wiehed jispikka fuq l-ohrajn. Dan:



Mela, per il vostro piacere e godimento nipprezentalkom l-aqwa (jew l-aghar) filmati ta' shahar, veggenti u qarrejja tax-xorti fuq dak ir-radam li hu t-TV regjonali taljan (bil-kummenti tal-Gialappa's).

Is-second division spiritiku:

  • Hawn din id-dedikazzjoni inkazzata tal-Mago Omar lil xi telespettatur li qal dak li ma kellux jghid.
  • Il-Maga Ambra naqra inkazzata li hadd m'hu qed icempel

F'klassi ghalih:
  • Hawn din is-sehta tal-Mago Gabriel (maghruf ahjar bhala l-Bela Lugosi katodiku ta' Torino) fuq il-'Giappas Benz'
  • Kif ukoll din fejn jerga' jintervieni l-Mago Gabriel u jurina kif, apparentement, tista' issir invisibbli jekk tixrob il-bajd tat-tigieg (jew ta' l-Upupa, araw intkom insomma)
  • Jew din fejn Gabriel, billi hu Mago d'oc u ghalih l-ipnotismo hi haga tal-principjanti, jaghmel esperiment ta' "pinotismo" minflok.
  • ..u din fejn l-Mago Gabriel, igieghel 'xpirita' tisma' 'xtupenta melotia' (u jgieghel it-telespettaturi jitpixxu bid-dahq ukoll).

Tridu taraw iktar filmati tieghu jixrob l-abjad tal-bajd, liebes flokk ta' taht jizfen madwar mejda, jew forsi tridu taraw il-filmat osé tieghu jorgasma fil-vaska? Mela zuru dan is-sit jew ikklikkjaw hawn.

--

lang:mt - cat:genm

dimecres, de juny 07, 2006

a (l)amposta of my own

Niddiletta naqra bil-geneologija jien.

Grazzi ghall-geneologija skoprejt li possibilment ghandi dawk il-famuzi nanniet Katalani (haga li kienet evidenti hafna meta qabbilt il-fatizzi tieghi ma' l-ucuh ta' certu supporters tal-Barcelona FC fil-gazzetta wara li xarrabna l- Arsenal kif imiss), Taljani, Griegi u Ghawdxin (u b'possibilita' ta' xi Irlandiz leprekun ukoll). Haga li nhobb nghid in-nies ghax jien ferhan - kemm b'mod peggorattiv u kemm newtrali - biha l-haga.

Jien, milli jidher, wiehed mill-ftit maltin puri tal-familja tieghi. Puri, insomma... pur daqs certu bniedem b'kunjom arjan imma ta' arjanita dubjuza.

Imma insomma... lura ghan-nanniet katalani (li ser jinkitbu fil-biografija tieghi). Mid-dehera kienu jivvjaggaw u jgorru min-naha ghall-ohra ta' Katalunja ta' spiss. Forsi huma hu ghaddejjin waqfu, jew anke ghexu, f'post jismu (l)amposta. Min jaf x'raw hemm... forsi kienu mistghagba daqs kemm kont jien li s-simbolu ta' l'amposta hu s-salib malti*? Dan kif? Malta diga saret sinonimu ma' (l)amposta? J'accuse!





* Min, bhali, juza l-Firefox attenti ghall-
favicon meta tillowdja l-pagna. Min le ahjar ghalih.

--

lang:mt - cat:genm

dissabte, de juny 03, 2006

weekly buffet

I'm going through changes

The name of this blog has been changed to Inutile de dégeler, and will be synched with my eponymous LJ blog. The look and layout of this blog have also been slightly modified.

I'm also working hard on the other projects I had previously mentioned. A minor setback... well make that a pretty major setback actually (my laptop clickety-clicked, whirred and died uncerimoniously a week or two ago) has prevented me from finishing off the stuff I would have liked to have finished off by now.

More on this next time...


Viddy this, viddy these

I always found YouTube to be quite an overrated site. Although there are a few gems, there's also an inordinate amount of puerile teenagers-with-a-cheap-DV vids to sift through to get to them. I found the attention to detail of videos such as this absolutely amazing; the humour won't split your sides but it still is pretty funny.


Badawi + FM3

Live at Recylart tomorrow.


Bufura rih imtarrab

Anita u jien rajna Vento di Terra llum. Iktar ma ninfirdu mill-Italja, iktar qed insiru bhalha. Ma nistax nispjegaha sew imma jekk taraw il-film forsi tifhmu x'jien nghid (nispera).

Mhux xi film li dak li jkun ser jaghmel dnub mejjet jekk jitilfu imma mhux film li ser ibiddillek hajtek lanqas...

---

lang:en - lang:mt - cat:gene - cat:film