Taken by Storm

In the previous post I hinted out that I was about to leave and engage on some "mission" and hoped that it would be successful. If you thought that I was going on some secret NASA mission to the moon, then I am afraid I am about to disappoint you. Or if you (more realistically) expected me to write about some overtime work related to my PhD and which involved me going to the MoD for some classified data on terrorism, then I suggest that you close this and proceed to Google and find some other interesting article. The mission was simple: seeking out to meet one of my idols from the music scene - Storm Thorgerson, the artist who created virtually all of the album covers from Pink Floyd and many other rock legends, including Muse and Led Zeppelin.

Last week I got an email from one of my colleagues that there is going to be an exhibition of Storm's album covers in a London art gallery. The email included a link to the event's website and, upon browsing, I realised that Storm was actually going to be at the venue on the Sunday!! After meeting Rick Wright (Floyd pianist), this was the next best "personal" link to the greatest progressive rock band of all time! So after a massive Sunday lunch, I headed off to Liverpool Street and, after a quest for an art gallery tucked away in a minor side street (a building which, in itself was also worth visiting), I walked in to meet the brains (quite literally) behind covers in the like of The dark side of the moon, Wish you were here, A momentary lapse of reason, Delicate sounds of thunder, Division bell and Pulse: pure, classic Floyd.

The girl at the desk (unnecessarily) said that, "Storm the artist was in today" and, upon the subsequent question of my Italian friend, "Where is he?", I impulsively yelled, "There he is!", as if I was talking about an acquaintance who was expected to meet me at that place and time! I spotted the man, seated leisurely behind a modest white table, sporting a Syd Barrett T-shirt (obviously), walking stick on the side, wife on the other, dog playing at his feet and a simple half-eaten lunch. I had to satisfy my initial thrill by asking Storm to take a picture with him, a request which he gladly granted. It was too good to be in the presence of a man who had so closely collaborated with the Floyd on numerous occasions, probably in the company of ashtrays with a heap of burnt out cigarettes, intentioned to fuel brainstorming debates, scribbling and album cover sketches.

The purpose of the trip, i.e., the exhibition itself was then fulfilled. A tour of the gallery which was filled with signed prints and accompanying explanatory notes by Storm himself which were completely wonderful. The insight of the artist behind each album cover, written in fluent, plain English but underlying the thoughtful concepts explored and portrayed in no 'random' or 'simple' manner totally overwhelmed me. From the simplicity and boldness of the classic Dark side prism image to the more physically challenging Momentary lapse cover with its 700 beds on a beach and the surreal Black holes and revelations cover, the genius of Storm's design-oriented mind was confirmed.

It was then time to purchase an awesome book featuring Storm's works, with full colour images and his own explanation behind the ideas portrayed. And, naturally, it was mandatory to have the book signed by the artist. In his modest, friendly way, Storm wrote a message on the first page: "To Karl, not Walter; From Malta. not Gibraltar. Storm Thorgerson, 2010": a spontaneous, simple outburst of poetry which was highly personalised and away from the usual cliches of authors but yet another unrehearsed exhibition of his creative touch. The Malta reference was added after Storm's question as to which is my home country. I incorrectly assumed that he was not aware of what/where Malta is, but Storm is quite well versed in geography as I soon discovered...

Storm said he knew all about Malta, which I thought was bluff. But then when I happened to mention that Roger did a concert in Malta back in 2006, he asked, "Was it at Valletta?" which clearly was his implicit reply, "See, I even know the name of your capital city!" And Storm likened Malta to Gibraltar in his "poem" simply to further prove that he knew Malta was an ex-colony in the Mediterranean, just like Gibraltar! I shared the memories of the magical night when Roger played the whole of Dark side in his Malta concert and then played "Wish you were here" in the memory of "all those who are no longer with us", which clearly referred to Syd Barrett who had died earlier that night but which unfortunate event had not yet been made public (presumably, Roger knew of his demise). Storm did not know this fact and retaliated by stating that he had suggested to Floyd the title "Wish you were here"...a novel fact indeed to my ears.

All in all, it was a unique experience which concluded an awesome weekend and which provided me with enough momentum to face another week of hard work, which I anticipate to be packed with partial differential equations, Laplace transforms and wave equations...but let me not infect this post with such matters!

And, by the way, the image in this post is courtesy of Luca Modenese, who quite skilfully captured me talking away and heavily exhibiting my Mediterranean tendency to make generous use of hand gestures and, at the same time, displays Storm in his split second departure from the real world whilst formulating his 'poem'.

One phant-astic weekend!

It is almost surreal to even think that there has been over a week of consistent sunshine here in London. And what more, the Icelandic volcano and the huge cloud of ash due to its eruption meant that all flights in the north of Europe were cancelled, freeing the skies en route to Heathrow from the usual air traffic noise (I can usually see/hear a plane every 60-90 seconds and this is a result of severe data gathering exercises since I have been living in this area of London!), which meant that the cloudless, blue skies were even more immaculate than usual. Mind you, temperatures did not soar beyond 17 degrees and went down to as low as 2 degrees at night, but, all in all, the weather was pleasant. This was only one of a series of great events this week...as till post will outline!

To be honest, the week started off in a somewhat crappy way...the wife was away for the weekend and I suppose it does not require much imagination to understand how a husband feels when his wife of a few weeks disappears for a few days, but this unfortunate event was quickly cut short on the Tuesday (really it was early Wednesday morning when we got back from the airport) and things resumed happily as before. I really should not provide further detail as to how the re-union was then celebrated...I bet I did get you, you filthy reader...I was referring to the fact that she brought back my 1 TB hard drive from home (which I had accidentally left behind). The hard drive which contains all of my life: 300 GB of music, another 600 GB of movies and 100 GB of pictures and random stuff. That was all, really (tongue in cheek!)

Friday, finally, and thus the weekend started. The usual trip to the pub sparked off the weekend; this week, for old times' sake, a visit to the Devonshire Arms close to our place in Kensington. And, while sipping my gin-and-tonic there, I recalled the many Sunday roasts I consumed there, which meant that somewhere in my diary I have to include a Sunday lunch at the Dev. Maybe in a few weeks' time when my dear old roomie visits from China (for this one brave dude, this will be the 2nd trip from the far east to Europe in as many months - remarkable indeed). And then Friday evening was concluded in the most chilled of ways in our cosy bed in the company of How I met your mother - I love that show!

Saturday kicked off with a brief but blissful visit to Oxford/Regent Street. Usually, I simply hate Oxford Street. Not the street per se, but the crowds, the confusion, the noise and all that kind of stuff which takes away all the pleasure from shopping. But at 9am on a Saturday, the place is virtually vacant and I could stroll down the 10m (!!!!) wide pavements leisurely, admire some decent Neo-Classical architecture and do some window shopping (I promised myself I will not subside to actual shopping this time) as I headed down to Regent Street. The Apple Store, to be precise. The motive was simple: my iPod had suddenly died and needed a post mortem. This proved to be inconclusive, which meant that the enviable customer support of Apple provided me with another iPod, at no cost. Talk about 'the customer is always right'!! Well done, Apple!

A quick lunch and the activity for Saturday afternoon: a trip to Somerset House (the Courtald Gallery, actually) and an exhibition of previously unseen Michelangelo sketches, drawings, poems and love letters to his (gay) lover from the 1500s. An extraordinary man from an extraordinary period from the past, which made me realise that, in this day and age, there are simply no people of such calibre, who can master art, sculpture, poetry, architecture and be some passionate, all at once. The event was concluded by some water antics in the piazza within Somerset House, where people must have thought I was a lunatic unleashed for an hour who happily found satisfaction in playing within the water fountain/s there. Well, I am young at heart, you know!

And, finally, the highlight of the day: a night at the theatre. This was wholly sponsored by my dear office colleagues, who, as a wedding present, gave us 2 dress circle tickets for the Love never dies musical. I had been planning to go to this from the day it was announced that (Baron) Lloyd Webber embarked on writing a sequel for his Phantom of the opera musical, which I have seen twice and still think is one of the most enchanting pieces of music in that genre. And the sequel: I tend to be super-sceptical of sequels, particularly in the world of film, but this one was simply amazing. The narrative was not a copy of the Phantom but almost a stand-alone from the original (I think the Phantom is no longer a monster while Raoul has become a modern-day alcoholic), the music and the singing were superb (albeit a few bars' worth of reference to the original music) and the scenery and imagery in the theatre was phenomenal. At some points, it was almost watching a movie rather than a stage presentation, but, at the same time, not taking away the magic of live stage production.

As always, whenever I engage in anything related to music, I tend to end up into a melancholic state of mind. I begin to ponder and ask myself why on earth am I not doing music full-time: composing, arranging, conducting, playing. It gets me shivers even writing about this, let alone be in a theatre as a spectator, let alone be in the industry as a performer! Nonetheless, unless you are a prodigy and/or extremely lucky, it is hard in this day and age to live off an "arts" profession. I once read what novelist Kurt Vonnegut wrote, "If you really want to hurt your parents and you don't have the nerve to be a homosexual, the least you can do is go into the arts". Shameful indeed, on many levels. A, there is nothing wrong with being homosexual (although I am clearly not one, I respect gays and their sexual choices) and, B, I cannot understand why one would hurt his/her parents by being in the arts. Which explains why I deliberately pointed out earlier that Michelangelo was gay, since he was both a homosexual and in the arts: his parents must have both died of strokes or heart attacks. And who would not want to be in possession of at least a fraction of Michelangelo's genius?

OK, enough said for today, partly because this is getting too philosophical and, more importantly, I have to leave for another activity, the details of which I will disclose later on, provided that the activity turns out to be as successful as I do hope it is! Summary: it was quite an eventful weekend! And I hope that it concludes even better!

It's a new dawn, it's a new day!

Two weeks (almost three!) have gone by since the long-awaited big day and almost as much as to my new life in London as a married man. To be quite honest, I found it much harder to settle back into the London routine and, especially, to resume with my academic work, than my wife found it to adjust herself to a new city, a new country, a new life. She is progressing through it all seamlessly, while I seem to be lagging behind. Truly embarrassing! Nevertheless, I will summarise what these past few weeks have entailed for us both here in London as we ended March and ventured into April...

Soon after flying to London, it was all about the logistical hassles of unpacking suitcases, filling up wardrobes, decorating rooms, buying supplies and all those necessary antics associated with moving in to a new place. Various trips to stores, supermarkets and the high street, in addition to the added bonus of being 2 rather than 1, happily made these otherwise stressful antics a pleasure! With Easter round the corner, a couple of College closure days meant that we had to organise some extra-curricular activities, both out and indoors, and these started off with a trip down to the Richmond area of the River Thames, to Syon Park/House to be more precise. A pleasant visit to a "garden" which required an hour to explore, countless numbers of pictures (needless to say!) and an interesting tour of the Robert-Adam-designed Syon House, which is the home of some Duke. Very English indeed. A chilled day finished off by a visit to a garden centre and a purchase of an indoor plant for our room!

The obvious religious chain of events which is what Easter is really all about started off on the Thursday with a "Passover meal" in our hall of residence, complete with old-school candle lighting, unleavened bread, wine and a thorough explanation of what the Passover was really about. A new way of celebrating the Maundy Thursday, which incidentally was the first time I did this outside of Malta. Good Friday 2010 had to be done without the usually compulsory visit to a Maltese village where the figure procession takes place. I dare say that the English way of celebrating Good Friday is far more secular than anyone in Malta would ever dream of; indeed, the religious celebration was topped off by tea and hot-cross-buns! All in all, it was a new way of living the Easter spirit.

On Saturday night, we ventured off for an Easter vigil service in a nearby Catholic church. A service which kicked off at 8pm and lasted till 10.30pm, at which point we were smelling of incense and with an overdose of Gregorian-chant-style singing in our heads. Catholicism in England is really conservative - they do love their ceremonial antics here! Easter Sunday was started off in truly Maltese style with a devouring of a Maltese figolla shipped all the way from the Med a week earlier and then continued with a trip to Westminster Abbey, where a morning service was held in the most enchanting of settings and with superb organ playing and real choir singing, which was wonderful. Obviously, the whole ceremonial parts did not lack here, either. Finally, Sunday was concluded with a great dinner in an Italian restaurant and some really awesome dessert and a good night's sleep!

The bank holiday on Monday was nothing more but lazy and chilled, with nothing more than a visit to Holland Park and the high street. By Tuesday, the guilt feelings started to kick in and I made my way to Imperial to check out where my work was at...and it seemed that "normal" life was about to resume from the rest of the week onwards. Normal in terms of work, that is, for now it is far more exciting than before: I have a wife awaiting me at home! Spring is well known to spur new life and, in my case, a new lifestyle indeed! And I am loving it!