Rumour has it that while Bush was kissing hands and shaking babies in Fushe-Kruje, somebody, um, stole his watch pulled his watch off and dropped it on the ground. He took it off himself, okay?

Lockdown

I can't describe how nice it was to wake up this morning to the sound of birds instead of the taxi drivers across the street blasting “The Numa Numa Song”. Tirana should ban cars from the centre every weekend, not just when George Bush rolls into town.

What they didn't tell us beforehand was that most of the streets in my neighbourhood would be off-limits not just to cars but to pedestrians as well, and that they would be opened and closed seemingly at random. What would normally be a five-minute walk involved a kilometer-long detour across the river and around the lockdown zone. At one point, my block was completely cordoned off; I had to promise the police that I really did live there. At least the American army's anticipated seven-hour occupation of the city was, except for a helicopter or two, nearly invisible.


Bush was given the Nderi i Flamurit (Honour to the Flag) medal (Albania's “least gratuitously-distributed medals,” according to a newscaster). Tirana's Rruga e Barrikadave (Street of the Barricades) was renamed “George Bush Street” (or rather “Rruga Xhorxh Bush”; Albanians transliterate foreign names into Albanian phonetics. My name is “Xheims.”). He was also made an honourary citizen of the nearby “god-forsaken village” (the newscaster's words, not mine) of Fushe-Kruje, to which people “flocked from every muddy corner of Middle Albania” (newscaster again) to greet the sort of overwhelmed-looking president. Red, white and blue stovepipe hats and miniature American flags were everywhere.

So it must have made for a nice change from the protesters that usually greet Bush and his entourage. The president even made a spontaneous public appearance in Fushe-Kruje, stepping into a bakery (which I'm betting will be named “Bukeri Xhorxh Bush” by Monday); taking pictures with Fushe-Krujeans; and being generally embraced by the crowd. Some of the positivity, though, seemed to stem not from the prevalent pro-American attitude in Albania, although that's definitely part of it, but from the idea that Bush is somehow responsible for Kosovo's impending independence. Which, excepting his support for the Ahtisaari plan, I don't really see.

Really, Really Excited

Bush's visit is drawing closer, and more decorations are going up, from the Pyramid:


to the streets:


to the video billboards:


I ventured inside the Pyramid yesterday to see what the Ekspozite was all about. The central part of the building is filled by a trade-show thing (honey, jewelry, galvanized steel sheeting; whatever you need). In one of the side rooms is a gallery showcasing great moments in Albanian-American Relations, interspersed with random photographs of the U. S. (and one which I think was taken in Toronto). The next gallery was filled entirely with photographs of George W. Bush. Here's Baby Bush:


There was a movie that was supposed to be playing, but only the audio was working. All I can tell you is that the soundtrack was heavy on "The Star-Spangled Banner."

TirJazzFest, #3

The Jazz Fest continued on Friday with a collaborative show by festival president Hans-Joachim Roedelius, Swiss cellist Clementine Gasser, and Italian guitarist Fabio Capanni. Gasser's “unfriendly classical avant-garde” solos were the highlight of the concert; the guitarist's contributions were minimal and unobtrusive, while Roedelius's subtle, Eno-esque mix of piano and ambient soundscapes was entrancing, but I'd rather have listened to it on headphones than in a crowded club.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

It didn't help that the crowd wasn't into the music at all. The American sitting next to me left after one song, saying “this isn't the kind of jazz I like.” I could see why: this was “jazz” as in “semi-improvised live collaboration,” not as in “sax, double bass, and drums.” The Tirana Semi-Improvised Music and also Some Jazz Festival doesn't have the same ring, though. Still, if you're bored at a concert and want to talk, go out on the terrasse. Please. I can't hear the music over your conversations.

Hans-Joachim Roedelius

After the main event, Roedelius played an amazing DJ set that swung from techno to ambient before settling into a shuffling, chilled-out breakbeat groove. Mr. Roedelius, you are a fantastic DJ, and thank you for letting us eat the rest of your snack table.

Clementine Gasser

Some general thoughts on the Jazz Fest:

• It would be really great if the printed schedule of performances had some relation to reality. The Roedelius / Gasser / Capanni concert, scheduled for 7.30, didn't start until after 9.30.

• Merchandise tables would be a good idea. We were talking to Clementine Gasser after the concert, when one of the staff came up to us and said “You want to buy a CD? Ten euros.” Well, okay, actually we did want to, but it was still awkward.

• Lollipop is a near-perfect place for live music; they should have more shows there.

In other news, Tirana's finally getting a second movie theatre. The Imperial, in the Sheraton building, will open next week. My girlfriend took a quick tour of it this morning; apparently one of the screening rooms has huge, comfortable armchairs with buttons on the side that will eventually let you order food and drinks during the movie; at the moment they just turn on all the vacuum cleaners.

TirJazzFest, #2

Thursday night (I skipped the accordion concert on Wednesday) was an Austrian duo, made up of guitarist Eric Spitzer-Marlyn and singer Lisa Stern, who, through the magic of live sampling, sang looped harmonies with herself. It reminded me a little of Final Fantasy, but with looped vocals instead of violin, and with more of a pop/jazz sound. At one point, she asked the crowd for an Albanian word to sing into the sampler, but I think all the native Albanian speakers were out smoking on the terrasse, so she ended up with a loop that sounded sort of Albanian-ish. A very cool show; I thoroughly enjoyed it.


French collective Leda Atomica was next. I didn't see the bandmembers touch a single conventional instrument (save the drums, and I'm sure there was something cool about them that I couldn't see). Instead, they played what looked like self-built instruments, including a sort of one-string electric violin and a series of amped-up metal rods attached to a 4'x4' sheet of metal. The thing in the picture above that looks sort of like a metal-shop rendition of a Georgia O'Keefe painting, or a robot stingray, works like a kind of personal amphitheatre: singing into the flangey part at the bottom amplifies and distorts the singer's voice. The music itself (sort of Middle-Eastern influenced avant-garde electronica) was too heavy and over-serious after the opening band (plus it was near 11pm), so we headed out, feeling sorry for the American Ambassador, who had to sit front and center until, I'm assuming, the end of the concert.

TirJazzFest

This year's Tirana Jazz Fest started on Tuesday night. It's nowhere near the size of Montreal's, but the festival has the same broad-minded definition of “jazz.” I missed the first hour of the opening concert, as the flier I had, in the best Albanian tradition, didn't list the time that anything started. I did manage to catch a little of two-piece band Lene Lovich, who played a sort of Nina Hagen-style Expressionist electro-cabaret show. Not really my sort of thing, but the venue for the festival (a nightclub called Lollipop, owned by the son of the Socialist ex-Prime Minister Fatos Nano) is a great place for a smallish concert.

GWB

Next month, George Bush will become the first sitting American president to visit Albania, and the government is excited:


There's a cafe in Tirana named after George Bush, and a "Bush Auto Repair" just outside the city. I hope he drives by at least one of them; maybe he'll be convinced to relax visa restrictions for Albanians. I also think that whoever owns the bus which flies a giant American flag with the words "Land of Milk and Honey" written across it should park it near the embassy for the weekend.

Reading about the security arrangements for his visit, I'm tempted to head down to the beach for the day. My last apartment had police officers with AK-47s stationed in the stairwell 24/7; I've sort of been enjoying the demilitarized ambiance of my new building. The prospect of a car-free city centre might outweigh the rooftop snipers and the rumoured shutdown of the cellphone network, though.

More excitingly, for me at least, Dolores O'Riordan (former lead singer of The Cranberries) is playing a concert here next month. Tirana's live music scene is still pretty dismal, encompassing mainly cover bands (some of which are pretty good) and local groups with names like The Sexy Very Much Band. The promoters who run The Living Room nightclub have recently started booking more international artists (including Dolores O'Riordan and, believe it or not, Deep Purple); hopefully this is a sign of better things to come.