Tuesday, April 04, 2006

Beer in Old Albania, and the "blessed unrest bawdy Balkan bacchanal."


Back in January, I received a note from New York City from a woman who had stumbled across the New Albanian Brewing Company’s web site during the course of Internet research on the country of Albania.

Or, as I call it now, “Old Albania.”

Last year I reprinted an article from 1994, entitled "Beer in the Land of the Eagle." As the photo at left indicates, the Tirana brewery has managed to add labeling during the intervening 12 years.

Back home in New Albany, “New Albanian” always has been intended as a two-sided pun, one that refers to a resident of the Indiana city and all things pertaining to it, as well as the small but fascinating European country.

As it turned out, my correspondent was soliciting donations for a fundraising event on behalf of artistic expression in Kosova, the Albanian-dominated breakaway province soon likely to be permanently detached from Serbia.

I’m not about to take a position on this likely geopolitical step, and it was impossible to provide beer, but donating a couple of New Albanian t-shirts to the organizers struck me as appropriate.

NABC in NYC … anyway, here’s a description of the fundraiser and a link to the web site.

blessed unrest bawdy Balkan bacchanal

A benefit event to support an International Theatrical Collaboration between blessed unrest and Teatri Oda of Prishtina, Kosova

Saturday, April 8th, 2006, 7:30-10:30 pm, 500 West 52nd Street, 2nd Floor, New York City.

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(photo credit here)

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