The real Jazz Festival is back

Just the other day, I met my friend Adrian Mamo, Chairman of the Malta Council for Culture and the Arts. I asked about this year's Malta Arts Festival and complained about the way the Malta Jazz Festival had lost its soul before it actually had the opportunity to mature. Well, this year, I was informed, the real Jazz Festival is back with a vengeance.

One of the musicians playing this year is Oliver Degabriele. He writes on the Jazz Festival blog about how he got to be working in Paris .

Whenever I’m back in Malta,I get a lot of people telling me how lucky I am that I am a full- time musician in Paris, and though most of the times I simply nod in agreement, sometimes I can’t help but wonder where the luck came into it!

I remember very clearly how set I was on leaving the island to study music when I was still at university. I had been playing the bass for a while, and I had started to tour abroad regularly with Malta’s world music band, Etnika, as well as playing jazz gigs in Malta, mostly with Joe Debono and Charles ‘City’ Gatt. I learnt a lot from performing, especially with Joe and City. I started becoming familiar with the language, as well as with my instrument.

I had finished university, started working, and was still in Malta. I had no fixed plan, no budget and very little patience! Still, even though the decision to go to Paris had been brewing in my mind for a while, things with Etnika were doing very well, and I was playing most nights in Malta. The weird thing is that all this activity was just making me all the more eager to leave the island.

There is a paradoxical danger with comfort in art: the more comfortable you are, the less you are likely to progress in your discipline, whatever it may be. I was getting very comfortable, and at the same time feeling like I had reached a point where I couldn’t move forward as long as I didn’t pull myself out of the comfort zone I was in. So I quit my job and bought a ticket to Paris.

So till that point, there was little luck involved with me ending up in the French capital, even though if I sure needed plenty of it to live through the first couple of months in the city! I had auditions to do, an apartment to find, a language to learn, and a lot of musicians to meet before I could even think of making a living from music. I had no clue whether I would be on my way back to Malta after a few months, or whether things would work out for me.

We Are Family, bishops of Malta

In a statement yesterday, the representatives of the Church in Malta, Pawlu Cremona and Mario Grech said voters should choose candidates who supported families based on marriage between men and women.



Read my lips Mr and Mr Bishop - We Are Family too.

I, in turn, encourage you to choose candidates who support a clear separation of church and state.

Forget Sharon, the Duke of Lamarcop sounds like much more fun!

Never have I received so many invites to 'parties' as I have in these last few days. I must admit it has been mostly my fault for 'befriending' most MEP hopefuls via Facebook. Here are indeed some characters I look forward to meeting in the streets of Valletta, come Friday 03 July.

BARROCO-ROLL
A Street Theatre Performance by Azar Teatro

Following the enormous success in the Malta Arts Festival last year with Spanish Blood, Azar Teatro from Spain are back with another street theatre performance, Barroco-Roll.

Barroco-roll is a grimacing bloomer, a stinging amusement, a satirical madhouse, a court game, a Court ready to play with everyone. A spectacular staging, suitable for everyone.

A court in the style of Versailles goes out into the town in order to meet the people; The Duke of Lamarcop, in charge of the military, the vigorous royal doctor, Count Von Vaskenstein, Amadeus Alfonsus, the scatterbrained court musician, and two unusual Maids of Honour, the spectacular Meninin Monroe and the intriguing widow, LaVenenoSA, are the retinue who accompany the lavish Royal Carriage, in which H.R.H King Rey Distintus I is seated.

During the visit, it becomes very obvious that the monarch suffers from horrendous stomach problems with all the foreseeable results that affect everyone who is nearby and ...

As his Majesty says: “let the people come to me”.

Is the kingdom going badly?
Nooooooo. The kingdom is going smoothly…

Start Time: Friday, July 3, 2009 at 10:30am
End Time: Saturday, July 4, 2009 at 12:30pm
Location: Republic St., Valletta
maltaculture.com

PS. The second edition of the book fair dedicated to Maltese publications will still be open until tomorrow. Seeing that I hardly ever see anyone in Malta reading, take this opportunity or pop into a bookshop and be enticed by a book.

Buses drive me crazy

Leif Pettersen from Minneapolis writes a blog about his travels with tongue firmly in cheek. Two years ago he experienced what some refer to as bone rattlers and others as Malta's public transport.

...Maltese bus drivers are all seemingly outpatients at the ‘Institute for Suicidal Tourettes Sufferers’. They drove like they’d just learned their brains were going to spontaneously explode at some point that day and so why not live on the edge a little? And they were a little irritable. Any time another car/person/utility pole got in their way they’d shriek out a non-church-worthy string of Maltese, lean on specially made piercing bus horns that could shatter a Coke bottle and perform a series of spastic gesticulations, suggesting that Minor Setback-Induced Heart Failure was imminent

When they weren’t engaged in these tasks, they were boorish and combative with every person that had the audacity to step on their bus:

Innocent Travel Writer Passenger: “How much is the fare to Rabat?”

Jackhole Driver: “frazzelgrumpf”

ITWP: “I’m sorry how much?”

JD: [undue exasperation] “50 cents!!! Jesus ^@$%*)*^%##^(* Christ!!!”

Online Comments

Attempts by some on-line newspapers at being egalitarian have had the result of exposing us to the uncensored thoughts of the uncouth in all their misspelt splendour. Whole paragraphs in loud capital letters with an interesting use of Minglish assert various gospel truths.

I was listening to Welsh comedian Lloyd Langford on BBC Radio 4's The Now Show speaking on viewers' text messages on news programmes. His comments could very well apply to reader's comments on online newspapers.

There's this common misconception that all opinions are of equal value. They're not. The people who can express a viewpoint on a complex and intricate political situation in 140 characters or less are precisely the people I don't want to hear from. They get their information from a tabloid or a man in the pub, then they chew it over in their tiny patriotic heads, and then they send it via a text message in an even more simplified form, often without vowels. It's like watching a racist Scrabble player trying to use the last of their tiles.

"...abysmal songs, absurd dancing, tacky costumes – and we wouldn’t want it any other way."

At the end of last year I was asked by PBS to design their logo for the local competition that leads to Junior Eurovision. It was the first time I had heard of the junior version of the European festival. Daniel Testa went on to win the Junior Eurosong and represent Malta in Cyprus with great verve and pizzazz.

The title above is how Tim Robey described Sounds Like Teen Spirit, a new popumentary released this month in the UK. It's "a cross between Borat and Little Miss Sunshine" according to Jamie Jay Johnson of The Telegraph. I have only seen the latter and it's one of the favourites in my DVD collection.



Kev Geoghegan writes about some of the protagonists in director Jamie J Johnson's film:

There's 12-year-old Mariam, raised in a crumbling, Soviet-era high rise in Gori, 47 miles west of Georgia's capital Tbilisi, and the birthplace of Josef Stalin.

Yiorgos, a doe-eyed imp from Cyprus, goes fishing with his dad but hasn't landed a single fish in two years.

In one of the documentary's many heart-wrenchingly honest exchanges, he admits he is bullied and called "gay" at school because of his interest in singing and dancing rather than football.

Bulgarian hopeful Marina, 14, of the seven-piece Bon Bon, had a comparatively luxurious upbringing in a large house with a swimming pool but exhibits a kind of sadness and maturity beyond her years.

In a genuinely moving segment, she volunteers the information that her businessman father has recently left her mother for another woman.

She hopes he will see the documentary and come home.

I shall be looking out for an appearance by the sweet Daniel but I have a feeling he doesn't feature amongst the young chosen ones.

Disillusioned

Politics is just show business for ugly people.
Jay Leno.

With the EU elections on our doorstep and the considerable number of MP hopefuls attempting to get our attention and essentially our vote, figuring out who represents what we belief in is not a simple issue any more. Where once Left and Right were distinct ideologies, politics is suddenly a much more complex tool.

The fascinating thing about blogs is that we get to follow other people's journeys and thought processes. Andrew Sciberras, a 21 year old law student yesterday threw away the membership card of the party that he had until then believed in. Here he attempts to make sense of what the main political parties represent.

There are several ways or ideologies on which politicians may base their choices. Let me mention two. The cosmopolitan, generally speaking, strives for international solidarity and cooperation. He does not build walls, rather he tends to bring them down. He holds a broad view of globalisation which is not merely limited to the greedy sprawl of corporations and exploitation of workers, but includes international solidarity with peoples all over the world. The nationalist, on the other hand favours insularity and is most eager to erect walls. For the nationalist it is a sin that other nations or international organisations meddle in internal affairs. Anything beyond the border is the enemy. A chief example of nationalism is Berlusconi's statement that his government "won't do like the left governments and become a multi-ethnic Italy."

In Malta cosmopolitanism, which on political lines I identify with the left, does not exist. Many times, the Labour Party turns out to be far more nationalist than the Nationalist party itself. It was doing so in the immigration situation until the Nationalist Party, which was pursuing diplomacy, started to kiss Maroni's un-diplomatic ass and regard him as a hero. For suspending international obligations (many of which incorporate human rights) and threatening to destabilize European progress of all forms with the use of the veto is nothing but ultra-nationalism. The closest thing to cosmopolitanism that I have seen was cross-border trade union solidarity in the dockyard issue, solidarity with anti-hunting organisations in Malta and Europe, and a recent international solidarity of NGO's on migration. Now, Labour is dangerously silent or in secretive agreement with the forced repatriation of migrants which falls foul of the basic human rights etched in the Universal Declaration.

AD may be more cautious in approach, and has indeed criticised Maroni in the recent past, but I was not so happy with Cassola's statement the other day (in a GWU-Youths seminar on 'What's Left?') who claimed that the situation is what it is...we must not discard the people's sentiment on the issue. I'm sorry to say but the people's sentiment is disgusting and becoming worryingly more so. The people's sentiment is very important yes but leaders are also there to lead. It is dangerous to think that the people's sentiment holds stronger weight than the basic rules of law.

For that is what is happening. Basic and fundamental norms which play a central role in any democracy are being discarded for political ends, namely to gain votes. This has always been the practise of the far right. Mainstream leftist parties must not be an accomplice to this. Labour and AD need to pull off the tape and speak up NOW.

Noise 1. Opera

At the end of 2008 Malta's Prime Minister, Dr. Lawrence Gonzi, announced to a bemused and astonished electorate that he planned to build a Parliament in place of the bombed out Opera House building in Valletta. This is Europe's most visible World War Two bomb site at the entrance to Valletta.
Ian Waugh

I have performed at many opera houses which are not as big as the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden or New York's Metropolitan Opera House, but still do a very good job of sustaining big productions. I think more studies need to be carried out to ascertain whether the footprint is indeed not suited for a modern-day theatre.
Joseph Calleja

"The numbers are simply not there!"
Dr Fenech categorically stated that whoever said Malta needed another opera house did not know what they were talking about, referring to them and their opinions as "hullabaloo".
Dr. Peter Fenech

The national theatre is not there to make profit but to serve the people irrespective of the cost.
Kenneth Zammit Tabona

The Malta Library and Information Association (MaLIA) issued a press release last month proposing that this site is developed into a Cultural Centre that should include a state-of-the-art public library, among other facilities.
MaLIA

To put Parliament there would be a clear option for The City as a museum rather than for Valletta Alive, since Parliament requires a building with severely restricted entry and even more stringent security precautions than those which have impeded St James Cavalier from making use of its splendid roof space (because of proximity to the Prime Minister's office).
Fr Peter Serracino Inglott

I truly appreciate what Fr Peter has done for the arts and culture and I fully understand his line of thinking that Valletta can only be revived in the evenings through cultural activities; on the other hand, there is simply nowhere else to put our Parliament.
Ray Bondin

Plainly speaking, I don’t agree that the Parliament should be shifted to the entrance of the city. A parliament in this location would contribute to the death rather than to the revival of the image and life of Valletta as a capital city.
Victor Galea

Given that nobody seems content to let the others get away with a parliament house, a museum of modern art, an opera house, a national theatre, and now even a public library, we run the risk of being left with the one thing that will offend no one: nothing.
Daphne Caruana Galizia

Where does the present fit in between Maltese history?

In Malta there is so much history it risks snuffing out contemporary life. How do you live in and around the glory and ruins of 5000 years of human activity? A fun example was found yesterday afternoon at the Upper Barrakka Gardens where preparations were under way for a wine festival. Tables were being set up in between cannons on the the "saluting battery". If you think about it too much, the proximity of war and leisure seems a strange mix, but in practice it's beautiful, peaceful, and the view unparalleled. However, when I'm visiting Malta, I feel overloaded by "older" or "official" history, whether it's the Knights of Saint John, the ornate churches or something involving World War II. I have a harder time getting a sense of what Malta was like more recently, during the 1970s or 1980s. And what interesting things are Maltese artists, intellectuals and up to today? As a visitor, I have to work hard to find this kind of thing, but it's there. Malta is not alone, artists and creative people in places like Edinburgh and Paris have a hard time doing "new" things under the weight of all that beautiful history.