Literature/Gjuhesi

Shqiptaret, shqipja dhe "posterboys".
Nga Altin Topi
Alb-Club/Gazeta Java Nov 2003

Nje nga atributet pexhorative paragjykuese, qe shqiptari i vesh xhinsin e tij, eshte mungesa totale e disiplines. Por a mund te konsiderohet ky definicion coherent ? Une e gjykoj se ky pergjithesim "a priori" eshte kryekeput i gabuar. Ne thelb, shqiptarit nuk i mungon aspak kapaciteti per disipline, kapaciteti per te qene i disiplinuar. Perkundrazi, ai i nenshtrohet pushtetit, perkrah dhe e ndjek udheheqjen e vet me plot deshire, biles edhe ne se kjo mund te shendrohet thjesht ne nje tirani. Ketu fillon edhe habija jone. Kur flitet per nenshtrim, perqafim, perkrahje e ndjekje te nje udheheqje, per cudi, ate qe e terheq dhe e entuziazmon shqiptarin nuk eshte nje udheheqje e saturuar nga vjetersia e dekorit, por nje udheheqje qe eshte e re dhe ekstravagante. Shqiptari do t'i rezistoje me te gjitha menyrat imponimit qe vjen nga e kaluara e solidifikuar, dhe me deshiren dhe vullnetin e nje muzhiku rus do te ndjeke profetin e ri, edhe sikur kjo gje do t'a degdiste ne mesin e nje katastrofe ekonomike, nje degradimi moral, zbehjen e humbjen e besimeve (relixhioneve) fetare, e ne fund, ne mesin e nje zallamahije te nje Babeli te imponuar gjuhesor.

Literature/Gjuhesi

"Vesi" i shkrimtarit
Altin Topi
Alb-Club/Bota Shqiptare Dec 2002

Dekonstruktivistit te mitit shqiptar, z. Lubonja, iu dha "Cmimi Moravia" per letersine e huaj nga Keshilli Administrativ i Fondacionit me te njejten emer, i cili akordon kete cmim te pervitshem nje autori te huaj qe prej 10 vjetesh.

Duhet thene qe ne fillim, se ky moment duhet pershendetur si shenje vleresimi, qe i behet z.Lubonja nga nje fondacion i huaj. Menyra e zgjedhjes te autorit nuk behet mbi bazen e disa kandidaturave, por thjesht nje sugjerim prej njerit prej anetareve te Keshillit Administrativ, e qe me pas merr aprovimin prej shumices te anetareve te keshillit. Sic marrim vesh nga vet z.Lubonja, ishte vizita e zonje Dacia Maraini ( nje nga iniciatoret e krijimit te Fondacionit, anetare e Keshillit Administrativ, e nje nga me besniket, mbrojteset te vepres, si nje nga shoqet e jetes te Alberto Moravias) ne Shqiperi qe ndikoj ne nje perzgjedhje te tille. Lubonja: .."karriera ime jashteletrare ka ndikuar ne kete vleresim pasi me teper se per vepren e botuar ne vitin 1994, cmimi mund te jete nje vleresim i pergjithshem qe duhet pare ne planin e krijimtarise sime, ose ne planin individual".

Art/Movie and Theater

Before the Rain
Altin Topi
Alb-Club Feb 2000

In his first debut as film director of “Before the Rain", Milcho Manchevski, is extremely unpredictable in telling the story. He even doesn't try to find any explanation for such immutability of hatred and violence overwhelming dramatically the two neighboring settlements, the Macedonian christians and Albanian moslems. For him it looks as the best way to approach the story.

Everything starts and ends at the same point - “before the rain". The metaphoric rain and the sophisticated narrative style of the new director leave the audience during all the sequences of the film in a perplexity, sometimes in front of a puzzle full of paradoxes.

Art/Movie & Theater

All you need for a movie is a gun and a girl.
Altin Topi
Alb-Club August 2001

Who can be the author of such wisdom, - the title of this miniature essay, - other than Jean-Luc Godard? The "Band of Outsiders", or translated in other words "Tres Bon Bonnie and her Clydes", is reissued these days with a new print and subtitles, being a masterpiece of mood, nuance and emotions. It is playing at Film Forum in Manhattan, New York City.

Once Godard said that he made the film to "sell a lot of tickets", but he didn't. All his films were unable to sell a lot of tickets. Apart of this, his films didn't disappear in the timeless oblivion, and as this gangsters' film of French smell, it rose from the ashes and dust of time and arrived at the Film Forum with a catalog's worth of movie geek ephemera. Quentin Tarantino himself adopted its name to "A Band Apart" for his production company and as per Godard himself: "Tarantino named his production company after one of my films. He'd have done better to give me some money."

Art/Proze

Making love in July
Altin Topi
Alb-Club Nov. 2001


As the year rounds up, each season accumulates enough memories to transform my ordinary calendar into an astrological chart. It has been always a cliché that June is the month of romance, and often in poetry and adolescent fancies, love arrives this month, in June, accompanied by starry skies and the awakening of bird song of early mornings. My daytime dreaming has had its different moods, and with passing of years has become more down-to-earth, more hedonistic in nature. It has changed from day dreaming about love to a recall of real life, into love making. Well, that's how it is in my dream now, the other way around, after daytime dreaming, I wake up, and I try to recover it.

Art/Proze

The boy with a kite
Altin Topi
Alb-Club October 28, 2003



Something very strange happened to me yesterday. Do you know those dreams that leave you so perplexed and you do not know exactly what to make about? That's precisely the point. I dreamt about a place, where I haven't been since the days of my boyhood. It is a place where the beach goes on for mile, and because of the thick jungle of trees to pass through, there is no access from the road. The inlet separates one beach from the other; it is no other way to reach the other beach unless you swim across the inlet.

Art/Proze

Abi - Albanian Snow White
Altin Topi
Alb-Club October 14, 2001

Abi, here she is, only a twenty-one years old artist and somehow, - without thinking too much about the logic, - she looked at life as something to sneak up on her and pounce. Over six month ago, nobody knew exactly, when this started, she thought it is not possible for a girl like her to die of chronic dumb judgment, and with this mood of thinking, she slipped away into the Skyway to Tomorrowland. Once welcomed to Tomorrowland, Abi didn't find there the Aladdin's Oasis. It was for sure the country of Disneyland, but the one time, Albanian Snow White Girl, found out that Steven Spielberg didn't exactly come knocking on her apartment door. For a while she dreamt of the school thing, and then worked an array of bad jobs and worse jobs, - starting first as a dishwasher, further waitress, later as a hostess. She had to submit resumes to Baskin-Robbins, JC Penney's, Lord & Taylor, but finally her resume as the Albanian Snow White landed her in a cocktail place on Hollywood Universe as a part-time Disney gig.