Thou Shall Not Read Realta
Amongst University students (of Malta that is), there once existed a scandalous sheet of newspaper, produced by a group of students known as Realta Collective. On campus, I believe, there are 3 different productions (let’s adopt this term for now).
You have Insiter. In the last issue, the only article which can be loosely associated with politics is a bleak attempt by PULSE president Tyson Fenech to ‘reassure’ students that PULSE is not stemmed from a Labour-based effort. Of course…
You have Stream. A very weak attempt to a newspaper, in which articles vary from a critique of Dr. House, to a an anemic crime story about Pia Micallef close encounter with the law. The other content includes frivolous stories and bizarre news from SDM . Those were a good 10 minutes lost from my life that I will never get back!
Finally you have Realta. A 12 page venture to increase awareness about political issues, whilst keeping an eye on Maltese (underground) culture. They do this without even one advert, meaning that they distribute the newspaper for free without any source of revenue. This explains why (unfortunately) it is not a periodical.
The point of this blog post is that the one and only Prof. Juanito Camilleri, also known as “The Rector” (with a capital R) decided to follow the advice of the mysterious character known as Fr Michael Bugeja. To be honest I doubt The Rector would have given a flying fcuk about what the students are reading. In fact he only exposes himself in public to students whenever there’s an exceptional guest on campus, with a few exceptions of course.
And for this reason I decided to post a few excerpts of the oh-so-illustrious story that brought forth this incomprehensible chaos:
“In-nassa, kien qalli missieri, li fuq nisa kien jaf sew, rid tkun taf tibni nassa ħelwa, daqs kemm tkun ħelwa lanqas jindunaw li hija nassa. Fuckin right, l-imħabba xogħol iebes. Imma għalhekk ngħix. Għan-nejk. “
” Ġieli naħseb dwar l-AIDS. X’il-Alla tagħmel?! Il-lasktu ma nużahx. Ma jidħolx. Haw’, ridt ngħid, m’għandux x’jaqsam. Qisek qed tgħid, iddaħħal imqarrun fil-forn meta jkun għadu fil-plastik. Jien hekk ngħid … “
“Darba spiċċajt ma’ oħra Maltija. Mingħajr ma ridt spiċċajna close. U ma reditx tħallini. Issa s-soltu meta jiġu bin-nejk nitlaqhom. M’għandix ħin nikkummiedja jien, f’xi restorant nixtrilhom xi ravjulata u x’naf jien. Jew ġewwa jew barra. M’hemmx triq tan-nofs għalija. Imma man, ma dik kelli l-problemi biex nitlaqha”
There you go, my 3 favourite excerpts from the story Li Tkisser Sewwi by Alex Vella Gera. Favourite because they give a true insight of this 35 year old male who is obsessed with sex, especially underage sex. Its a twisted and distorted story about love, or how love is interpreted by a sex addict. More like reading the memoirs of Hank Moody (prominent character from Californication played by David Duchovny) than anything.
So there you have it, this is what all this hullabaloo is about. I, for one, stand by Realta, and in fact I’m exquisitely interested in sending them some of my writing to be featured on their blog. There’s nothing better than a little networking to promote my blog, right?
Keith said,
November 6, 2009 at 10:10 pm
is there some place where I can get the full text??
Virgil said,
November 6, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Well, I was lucky to get a copy from university just in time.
Alex Vella Gera felt that, at this point he’s better off without his short story being paraded on the internet. To be honest, his attitude is really his lawyer’s suggestion. Becuase the police have decided to press charges. However I disagree with this view, and I must admit that I’m very tempted to write the whole thing.
Instead I would like to invite you to send an email to realta[at]inventati.org, with your details, and the Realta Collective will send you a copy of the whole thing, for a small fee (if I’m not mistaken). I understand the inconvenience of paying a small remuneration, but if it helps, the money will be used to print the next issues.
Hope this helped Keith.
Alex Vella Gera said,
November 6, 2009 at 11:46 pm
actually it wasn’t my lawyer’s decision. I haven’t even spoken to my lawyer yet. It was my decision, for personal reasons i’d rather not go into over here
Virgil said,
November 7, 2009 at 1:05 am
I agree and symphatise Alex.
I tend to believe that you hold the rights over the story, so I hope you have nothing against those quotations, becuase I did enjoy the story. I wouldn’t know whether this is any consolation, but a huge amount of people do support your cause.
Anyway, I know of a person who somewhat resembles that unnamed character, and it was interesting to observe his reaction after reading the story. I never seen a man in denial so much before. There’s something terrifying about finding something disgusting about yourself in black and white…you just cannot except it.
Alex Vella Gera said,
November 7, 2009 at 7:58 am
“There’s something terrifying about finding something disgusting about yourself in black and white…you just cannot except it.”
Of course. That goes for all of us. We all have stuff we’d rather not know about ourselves.