I’ve just been lucky enough to take a trip to Malta, land of my grandfather’s birth and burying place of other in-law relatives. It’s not an easy place to get to, but my heart has wanted to go there for years. It’s the fabulous history. Millenia of history. Footprints of travellers from centuries back. The sense of struggle and growth and religious wars. Cool stuff.
Kind son and his lovely partner arranged to take me and led me through hundreds of streets and pathways. I can’t thank them enough. It was a fabulous experience.
It’s an interesting spot. There ARE saints on every building corner. No one seems to notice them. The buildings in Valletta and Birgu are astonishingly attractive, their golden limestone sides glowing in the sun. They are also largely vacant.
Apparently Valletta has been on the downturn for some time- the buildings were wrecks until it was declared a UNESCO international treasure in 2018- lifting the tourism industry and helping with renovations. Some of the four-story buildings have coffee shops and unbelievably tiny shops in them. There are virtually no grocery stores. There ARE pharmacies. And balconies.
And tourists, even in this dead mid-winter time.
Culturally, it’s an odd place, too- people seem to come and be swept away. Prehistoric temples abound- but the people from that time mysteriously died out. The Phoenicians arrived and created art…but left. Muslims conquered through (and have been wiped off the history), and then the Knights of St John essentially built the Valletta seen today, and as far as I can tell, nothing much has happened since then. It’s all been about maintenance.
The knights were very ornamental – to the right you can see the interior of St. John’s co-cathedral, decorated on every flat surface. Even the floor is ornate, covered with decorative memorial slabs. It’s spectacular.
Earthquakes have shaken the place- half of the former capital of Mdina was shaken to the ground- original buildings are medieval style, rebuilding is Baroque. To the right, you can see the line along a wall where the medieval crumbled away, the right side rebuilt in the Baroque era. (They rebuilt it almost exactly the same, but with Baroque fancies.) Much of Malta seems to be repairing things to be exactly as they were.
The Maltese people have lived through invasions, the Inquisition (which apparently involved the ‘overstretching of muscles’ only and was MUCH gentler than the Spanish Inquisition), the blockades of the world wars and starvation thereof. They perch on an island made of limestone, with a thin coating of soil. Somehow they farm.
So, they’ve had a challenging time.
Now, they are having a harder one. Hidden behind the fronts of the tall houses are the Uber-rich, the 0.001%. Apartments are over 2,000,000 euros for a tiny cold space. The only real offices downtown are wealth management and investment companies. The rich hide in the tax haven, rarely seen. Do they contribute? Every museum collection and painting is labelled with the name of its sponsor, going right back to the dawn of history. Do the Uber-rich willingly pay for sewer and electrical systems when their names cannot be attached?
The rest of the island seems to rely on tourism only for support, and tourism is a fickle thing…and it doesn’t pay enough for people to live in the places they show to tourists.
Church seems scandalized
Music isn’t as present as I would have thought. We wandered over a large part of the main island and heard only top of the charts from the 1980s – except for in one very funky coffee bar down near the waterfront. In one extremely posh restaurant, we ate our dinner to a selection of bad covers of North American 80s tunes. You haven’t lived until you’ve heard YMCA sung as a ballad. Or “Killing me Softly” as an upbeat tune. It
broke my heart a bit, local music being one of the things I like best about travel.
Instead I listened to the language, a marvellous river of Maltese, English, Arabic, Italian, all swirling around, mingling even in the same sentence. It was fascinating, and loud.
Art in Valletta seems focused on the past, even in the new art gallery, Muza. As with
Antonio Sciortino’s flowing sculptures
much of Valletta, the new museum was built within the framework of a baroque building. This is charming, and makes every museum visit interesting on many levels, but it means little conveniences like elevators, accessible washrooms, etc. are missing.
Of course, there is so much art – temples inscribed in the many years BC, decorated pots and crypts and walls and floors and sculptures on every corner by city by-law. Saints are hung by every house door.
sculptor unknown
The new artists seem to choose ancient subjects – religious paintings are prevalent. Sculptures, though new, reflect ancient events. The most recent images seem to be of the terror of WW2 (well, except the mandatory prime ministerial statues. One wonders what they will do with the latest PM, escorted in shame from the country).
Of course, they know what sells. It is a tourist destination, after all, and people come to see the saints on every corner, enjoy the buttery sun on the beaches and the buildings, taste the rabbit that is on every menu. (It’s good!) But it has the air of a country frozen solidly in time. It’s beautiful, but, like the women climbing through the cobblestone streets in stiletto heels, Malta seems to be teetering on the edge.
I know artists and musicians who are dangling, unbought, while the world takes advantage of the Maude Lewis story and millions go into Hollywood coffers while the poor woman lived and died in pain and poverty. I was talking to a friend of mine who also finds this enraging. No one seems to feel the urge to donate to starving artists after the film, or to donate to the arthritis society, or to do anything other than buying reproduced Lewis art calendars (just the small ones, they aren’t too expensive), while our world, especially here in the Maritimes, is full of fresh new art, folk and other, that could use a loving touch, a new home.
And now for the other side of the story, and why it is so likely that I will be going to the 
It is set perfectly in Iceland, an island. A place sufficiently different to make the visitor feel vaguely alien, set apart, unreachable by real life. Nature like the surface of the moon, isolating us together. A place where both other human beings and that nature are reachable and attractive, in the way that magnets are attractive. You are inevitably drawn to the poetry here – the visual, musical, otherworldly poetry.
who dominates everything, who is filled with nothing but complaints. I didn’t meet that person. (unless it was me – gasp!)
All were hilarious and excellent teachers. Writing well does not necessarily equal teaching well, but however the two E.’s selected this group, the faaculty were masters of both. I never felt tired, or feared dozing, in their classes. All of us were deeply involved in every one. That is truly rare, especially in jet-lagged, well-fed folks. And we were very very well-fed. Yum. If I could have an Icelandic breakfast every morning, I could take over the world. But I digress…
We went to the home of 
I’ve always been the sort of person to speak in superlatives. I talk about the greatest thing, waggle my tongue around three-syllable words that overflow the conversation, wave my arms about, waggle my eyebrows, roll my eyes.
Since the election, I’ve been left speechless, even, in a verbal slump, angry at how words can be used to lie in all sorts of crazy, meaningless ways. Angry at the pundits, “Oh this was only campaign rhetoric. He’s not going to do that.” It’s okay to lie, they seem to say, because no one believes you anyway. Left without speech as I reel in horror as the actual future rolls out ahead of me, burning ground, shrivelled hopes, fear…
can’t think of words strong enough to explain my despair. I don’t even live in the US and I am unable to deal with this. His hateful speeches have opened the Pandora’s box of every country’s racism and sexism, and said, “Hey, let’s show our ugly side.”
My nails are long since gone…..
denies it, like we don’t have a film record. It’s bizarre.
rk, chewing over some hurt. It is a gray-green dream, the colour of jealousy and pride, two of those deadly sins we hear about now and then. And it’s a white person’s dream, a white man’s dream. Everyone else knows that, sometimes, no matter how hard you pull on those bootstraps, you may not “make it”. You may not be rich or famous, which appears to be the only goal worth having. Well, that and heaven.
And what of those very religious? I have a family member who believes that if God loves you, He (it is a male God, of course) will make you rich. My family member isn’t rich. How horrifying that must be, to think that therefore God must not like you. How damning. How angry it must make you at those you see as less deserving who are wealthier than you. Surely they cheated somehow, or were given the job because of special interests. It can’t be that YOU are not competent or prepared or the right fit. No never, because God loves you and so you are perfect.
rimarily, I’m gnawing my fingertips because of the violence validated by the media and one candidate in this race. I worry for friends and relatives and everyone else too, if the situation flares out of control. Everyone seems to be packing a gun south of the border, and tempers are frayed. I’m hoping that people won’t go rioting or marshall up the militias because, somehow, having an uncivilized monster run for President has made it even more okay to attack those weaker than you. Or different from you. Or those who “took your job.”
I’ve lived a lot of my life in the grimness of suburbia. You know – the large lawns, the well-spaced houses, located around schools and playing fields. The places from which you must drive to get anywhere exciting – or you can walk around your suburban block and watch other’s lawns grow, admire their gardens, comment on the lack of maintenance or the amazing maintenance, dodge lawn sprinklers and skateboards and bored teenagers with cars.
I’ve even lived in a suburb without an urb – the town of Shilo, Manitoba – a cluster of suburban roundabouts and 1950’s homes on a military base, in the middle of the short grass prairie, equally inconvenient to anywhere in North America as it was smack dab in the middle of the continent. When I first moved there, I slipped into a time warp, started wearing an apron, and cooked five batches of chocolate chips in the first week to share with the local kids before my natural anti-50’s soul rebelled. Still, I spent a heck of a lot of time house-cleaning there, my brain slowly leaking out with every bucket of pine-sol laden water poured out of the bucket. I wasn’t allowed to speak to men there, as every woman was pre-supposed to be on the hunt for a better husband (higher in rank). I also was reproved for speaking to the other ranks’ wives. I bought TUPPERWARE. In my defence, I had to, because the CO’s wife sold it. I still have it, 25 years later, a cautionary tale about being forced to conform.
(My house! (to the right))
DA's Ephemera and Etceteras 