things are not so sweet and peachy.

once again, we went out to show the frustration with the latest political decisions that show the fragility of our country. the damp colors of clothes and the gloomy weather made the protest march seem so depressing and sad, which was not really the case. not many people were waving the flag that was imposed on us - which really shows that we do not associate ourselves so much with it. so why do we have it then? it was an emotional day and glad we were part of it.

we even held a banner that nita made.

dinner at viska's. joyous

i should have put this moment up long before now (maybe a week or two before), because it was one of those nights that will be stuck to that old patch of good-memories belt. family gatherings are rare but this one happened at the right moment. my aunt, visare, has had a fair share of medical problems with her eye (when young, someone pointed an arrow and it landed straight into her eye). this night was nothing like it, with food, drinks, and good/laughing spirits and kindness all around. other took some photos of that night, but i had my crappy phone camera and i took some too (i knew that the pictures taken by others would take ages to arrive) - this happens because they never send them out. anyways.

i laughed so hard that night, that it will be remembered on each other laugh i have from now on. man, wish these happened more often these days.


``
thanks tezja visare for everything. wish that you won't have to go thru the same again.
stay healthy.

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it happened.

_/



I STAYED UP
+WITNESSED
CHANGE



/_

we're on the map.

so glad that i can finally select my country from the drop-down-list of countries. i voted earlier.

animal collective. skopje

it was such a rush yester-night. not knowing where the hotel is, not able to call the guy who bought the tickets or even reach him when we managed to call, not knowing where the venue was or how to get there or where to go after we found out that the venue was changed (I did not know what to do at this moment and instinctively me and nita just pulled down two posters from the doors, nicely rolled them and went to the taxi), and all other unknowns made it memorable. the place where they played was right underneath the city's train-station-tracks, but no trains were heard. can't believe how pure the whole place sounded. a couple of new/new songs played, and our feet/soul danced. found this video.




""
still can't believe how that night was pieced together.
but it was so good.

updates.

nita finally updated her blog. check out some really nice portraits she shot for her studies here.

weekend drive.

we took a ride down to a town that houses the two coal-powered electric plants. the reason we did this was that nita is completing a photoshoot for her studies, and at the same time it was fun to see the large objects up-close. While nita was photographing, a police car pulled over and started asking questions that made us immediately into high-profile suspects: we were supposedly endangering to put the entire region of Kosova on a black-out with our actions - that's what we were told. The pictures show the main field with power transmission grids.

we do not know if you're laying mines or putting granades around - said the police officer.

No signs were around that prohibited us from taking shots (apart from the part where the power-plant was located), so i pointed out the lack of protectin for these areas - which for some reason enraged the police officers. The conversation with the local police officer was beyond rational and they were really rude. At one point, he told me to shut up and move three feet - or - i would be faced with brutal force - and - almost arrested a friend of ours. Our arguments did not seem to help at all and each response got us into trouble.

of course, it was hilarious and i cannot (still) believe that our police force is so full of dumb people who cannot judge any situation / protect and serve. they left us alone, and we had to move from the power-plant > but nita made enough shots and continued her project elsewhere (which was the whole point).

this got me inspired to travel lost more around Kosova and see more closely where i live in.
might post some pics later on from the whole project.

frozen burst.

shoot this quickly while on my way back to work. got a new camera, and might go around take few shoots of the new surrounding.

time of the comet is terrible. horrible. terrible

Time of the Comet is a movie set in Albania at the beginning of WWI, and sees a small group of Albanian villagers as they travel to meet the newly crowned King of Albania (a German King) and pledge their allegiance to him - all this so that they fight the armies of the Ottoman Empire. It also makes it the most expensive movie that any Albanian has produced (it cost around 2.5milion Euros) But this "Time of the Comet" movie made me want to puke in its first 10mins and me and nita had to leave earlier because I could not take it anymore. Another friend of ours could not take it either.

The script/screenplay is unbelievably dumb+lifeless; the lines that actors say are vague/fake, and even in the most serious of dialogues, the audience was made to laugh,
the lead actor was more concerned with the looks than the way he acted/talked; there was no story line, although the historical story was rich in itself, but they've devoured any meaning of it; but the scenery and the camera shoots were ok.

the movie was dull, empty, stupid, pathetic.
at moments it seemed like one of those badly dubbed turkish movies.

There was a large audience, and the air conditioning was not working properly. It reminded me of the awful school excursions where you were trapped in a dirty bus seat, sweat all around and you could not escape the crumpy TV playing turbo-folk videos of yester-years new year festivities.




I want my 3euros back, please.
Thank you.

chalkidiki. thessaloniki. greece

shot with a 35mm film camera. converted it to digital. roughness remains - which is good.

greece. sun

``
just got back from a road-trip to greece. amazing place.
will post photos as soon as the good old man rolls them off the water machine.

``
summer is almost over, and the dust has finally settled.

post-posts.

`dokufest is not small anymore
`nita's fish is not here anymore

DOKUFEST.7

``
The annual international documentary and short film festival starts on monday aug04-10, in Prizren/Kosova.

I've managed to get an invitation to the first night and am excited to an see the screening of an international feature by Eric Daniel Metzgar: Life. Support. Music



anyone in Prizren at this time, please come and support dokufest.
nice/cute/movie/warm/nights.


``
more on the festival here.

tonight we

I always knew our friend Ron had street-cred (can't remember where i found this image). He's from the streets.

fiken-chingers are good finger food

Did not eat most of the day, in anticipation that my stomach will be filled with finger-food and cold-drinks at Tirona tavern. The waiter wes drunk as usual and no matter how hard Drindi tried to ask for a beer, he just did not give a damn.
Eventually he would bring the beer and be more attentive. I did not get it why so little food was there to devour, I mean, people initially declined to eat anything, but when we ordered, they started finger-licking eating.

I saw people snapping digital-cameras on top of tables but seems that those were close-ups and were not for sharing, most probably - received none so far. Hope my camera was alive to see all of this, and make the blog come to life.
It was very humid and I did not want to go to a place called Flirt. I'm still hungry as I just think about that night.

Tonight's home-night, as the weather is rainny and my bones are achy. Ratatat!

75cent soap cream is a fake hand-wash

prior to anything, we got some movies for tomorrow - one of which was an awful recommendation. tonight we were too big of a group to fit anywhere, let alone a small cafe. ron was good enough so he bought us a bag of peanuts. narta was taking photos, so i guess i might put photos at some point, but right now, my camera is broke and i like to keep it that way. we drank up at tingle and small chit-chat was there. beer seems to be our friend. stories were told about our newzealender/kiwi friends, one of which resembled joscef (a smoking-drinking version). after that, all of us - i'll name us (nita, drindi, ron, schatz, narta, milot, narta's brother, alban muja, milot's sister... ) - went to a cafe called

traffic
great small place, at a corner, at a quiet neighborhood. let's you play your own play-list - if you know the guys that run the place of course. beer and raki could be favorite companions, along with The Cure or any other band that's playing. I felt really sad because i was reminded of a great friend that passed away, but was happy for what was left. After being tipped off by Rina that akbar is a no-show because only the DJ was the one playing, and no ears were there to listen to its beats. personally, it's my favorite part of a party - dancing to the beats, real close and chatting to the one playing. anyways, we then moved our feet to

johny's
small place, isolated from the mainstream and small cafes. it is way-off the radar of your regular places, and it's like you are teleported back in time to get the boogy on. the owners are super nice people, and one of them touched my cheeck when i paid the bill - sweet. And he talked to Ron - Hi, my name is Ron, and I'm an alcoholic - about the speed at whichi he was throwing down hard raki at his throat and stomach. they were being careful that not too much raki was going down our throats. it was like being looked after a really nice person - not an annoying one.

departed after that with nita. there were some old friend that i shook the glasses with, but nothing more than that. we're a crazy lovable bunch that i'm glad to be part of.

it started.

"
summer season has landed and it's hot hot. last night was a long one, with me, nita, drindi, and alban muja heading off to tingell-tangell, te shoki/martini, and ending up at spray / places that we will regularly visit for the whole summer season. purple is the color of this season's blog writings.

" "
last night was weird /
we met two newzealanders, nick and (could not catch the other's name). They traveled all around Europe going thru festivals, went to Kotor (Montenegro), met some kosovars, slept on a four-star parking lot and then headed back to Kosova. They could not go to the EXIT Festival because the Serbian border police denied the entry (so stupid!) because they had Kosovar stamps on their passports. Anyways, they were glad of staying in Prishtina for the night.
We met Bardhi and Joe at the same exact spot - last summer, and now we hung out with two new-zelanders - one that terribly resembled Joescef Castor. It was surreal! we talked about peanuts, rugby and their adventures.

" " "
Dave Mothersole was a good-hear (he was wearing a "The Clash" super-fit t-shirt). the 3 eur heineken at spray was not cool, and it did not even taste good. Just after we left, we saw police cars enter the club. Drin (who stayed 10min longer) said that the police ordered that the voice is "lowered". it was 4.12a.m when we left.

it's like 2007 all over again

but without Bardhi and Joscef, which is sad sad. Drini is here after he was bored from the baking Croatian sun, which left him all brown. Ron finally joined us. Milot's insights are amazing. (and the name-mentioning stops here). we hang out during the winter and autumn and all, but summer and the whole people-visiting-Kosova makes me think that we're seasonal: summer is the heaviest with visitors and it's then when the going-out events suddenly quadruple.

``

dinning with a silver clio and a gold cannes lion`

``
Ogivly Kosova won a gold Lion in Cannes for the NEWBORN sculpture, prepared for the celebratory events of Kosova's declaration of independence. This is the second award that they receive for NEWBORN, with the first on being a Silver Clio Award in Miami. I feel so proud and happy for them letting me hang around the preparation process and inviting me to dinner parties, and letting me touch a lion and a clio. Good to know that Nita played an important part in this whole ride of our lovely typography-giant. They should also thank Independence of Kosova, as an important date that set them to create such a stunning piece of work. Thank you independence.
To mark the very special occasion, they threw a great dinner party at which we were fed tasty food and drinks.

Congrats and let's hope there are more on the way.
The link on the latest from NEWBORN's award travels here.
``

roisin/skopje/bass/heavy/bra-less/murphy

``my very first contact with a singer whose songs i sometimes listen. the place was packed (considering that we went there almost 2 hours before the show), and all the people were happy and seemed nice. we were right in front of her, a white/black combo shirt/pants, and the very first thing i noticed were her unusual shoe heels. she also had some killer shades on, at some moments during the concert (quite daft-punkish). there was no need for crowd-control personnel, but after roisin stretched her hands towards armelina and nita, the crowds rushed right in to see if murphy made the same offer again - which at this point, the crowds in front were filled with song-singing females / became a bit overwhelming actually. there was some ass shaking as well - but not a lenghty one.
``
videohere.

the performance was ecstatic, considering that i was a concert-virgin of this type. her clothes kept changing song after song (with bits and pieces added/removed). her small/miniature hats were amazing, and looked really nice on murphy. there was a mini-wardrobe on stage that helped her with the clothes-change. she even had two fans installed that spun when she sang "overpowered" i think. backup dancers, well, danced well.
``
videohere

nita, me, agon and armelina were too-many drinks over the limit, but i found myself quite sober half-way thru roisins performance. we were all dancing, and i was more amazed at what i was seeing right in front of me: roisin murphy. (symbolizes the break from the stupid concerts i saw). Sometimes the sound was too rhythmically the same as a South American melody, or something like that, and it was not very enjoyable. people there knew all the lyrics, and from the look of murphy's face, she was pleasantly surprised of this fact. lights/sound were perfect, and really were synchronized together.

there we meet two other friends that came from prishtina, and we heard that there were others as well, although not that much. it was a nice weekend in skopje, then we headed back to the hotel and slept small-hours. it made us think of how good it would be if we had more going on in our own city / prishtina.

the show started at 00:30, and went on to about 1:20, and in the end, roisin murphy and the two backup dancers/vocals got in a fight, which was so great to see.
``

``
The last view of edgesoup.com, before it was taken down. Edgesoup5 was never published and rhere still might be a last e-version of it coming out, but I doubt it. The website was a plan on what the latest edition of edgesoup would look like, but it never happened. It was fun and exciting making such a zine, but i think we could have not kept it together for long. Thanks to all those who sent their writings + promises in.

It won't be long until a new edgesoup springs out,

in a new shape/form. It will just take some time.
``

Automated Food Service (AFS)

New York City. Bamn food automat in the East Village.

``wish we had something like this here, so I could skip the whole "get your order" procedure. Those sandwiches look mighty fresh. Yum. It feels so good when you actually see your food before you order it, and the small food containers look amazing. The whole coin/open door thing is so nice and simple.
Automated Food Service sounds so mechanical. Just food automat.
Automat is harsh a word.
``
``Some sweet galleries for this type of food service here.

shopsitting

``me and nita will be babysitting SIMPATIKO Gift Shop for the next two days, starting today. Please come round if you legs happen to be near.
It's so lovely.

``A page from this year's auk yearbook. I'm done with school.

``
Victor Vasarely
prof. Tibor Csepei (lecture)
Kosova National Art Gallery
Prishtina/Kosova
May 21/08
20.00hrs``

``said by one of the organizers of the coming March 23rd, AUK senior class graduation party.
I will not attend.
``