tonight me/nita/ went to Ginger's Open Library Book Reading. nita had some friends there, and i hope that ron and edona would be there, but they weren't. Diana Berisha-Mahmuti, the author, was to read. 19:00 was the original time for the reading to begin, but it went on to start at 20:00. I was totally fine with it. People got to hang out in the Ginger Music Shop and some even bought DVDs/books. Nita told me that the backyard of the shop used to be piled up with trash and people used to pee there. For me, it was okay: no trash and no funny smells. It was adaptation at its best: out of 12 chairs, only 2pairs were (probably) the same; grass was covered with small/sharp stones, so as to remove the stains from the trash (probably); there were tables that almost tore my bag pack with their sharp surfaces; there was enough room to pack 25 people; almost no lighting and this dog kept wandering around. but i never felt so good and so out of touch with Prishtina. after it was all finished i thought i was somewhere else. people were good, not many. the owner of the shop had to ask the next cafe to close the windows because of the noise they were making.
the author was nice and very descriptive and happy. her book "Tue kapercy ylberin/Crossing the rainbow" is (as she confessed) a self-depicting autobiography of some sort, recalling the events of the decades of the '70, '80', '90, and now. The book expressed the perceptions of the author, and i liked it because the language used was not completely "standard" albanian/tosk, but it had some variations of the gheg dialect and some slang (there was a mini-debate about what people perceive as slang, and this book did not use slang language as people classify it). Making loud noises with your frying pan, meeting an ecuadorian woman who looked more like a gypsy than anything (named her sons Kujtim and Driton by the way) at the refugee camps at the macedonian border, and some personal accounts of the events that unfolded in 2002, and up to now, make the pillars of this book. The design/layout/page cover was made by Rrota/bresta/, and you got the feeling that it was a collaboration between bresta and diana.
i also did some translations for this guy (Serbian), who was sitting next to me. he looked like a cool guy, middle-aged, red-framed, wearing glasses, cool tie-less shoes and a friendly attitude. it became dark and the author had difficulties reading. they brought in a lamp.
the owner of Ginger told us that the space was "public space", so anyone with an idea could use it. we asked him if it was okay to stage a small gig for a friend of ours and he said yes. we have to check it if it's suitable for other things as well. this is such a great place, can't wait to use it.
