{"id":111183,"date":"2017-05-24T13:46:08","date_gmt":"2017-05-24T17:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=111183"},"modified":"2017-05-24T14:38:58","modified_gmt":"2017-05-24T18:38:58","slug":"my-albania","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/24\/my-albania\/","title":{"rendered":"My Albania"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

A postcard of Albania, ca. 1910.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some people wake up at four in the morning wondering if they\u2019ve left the light on in the kitchen. I wake up in a cold sweat wondering if there\u2019s some country that I\u2019ve forgotten, some place on Earth that\u2019s slipped through my fingers. For many years now, I\u2019ve collected music from the farthest reaches of the planet. I\u2019ve found tapes of music from islands in Indonesia where drummers build their own instruments and eat them after each performance; records of Eskimos who sing into each others\u2019 mouths; forty-fives of South African bands that sound just like the Sir Douglas Quintet; and records of Mongolian houmi<\/em> singers who can hit three notes simultaneously. When I can\u2019t sleep, I go wading through my collection like Scrooge McDuck swims in his money bin.<\/p>\n

And so I panicked when I awoke one night\u2014this was now more than\u00a0thirty years ago\u2014and realized that I had no Albanian records. Not a one. And I didn\u2019t even know where to look.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Albania, you may recall, is a small Balkan country bordering on Yugoslavia and Greece. At the time, it was still a communist nation, and I wouldn\u2019t credit it with undue hospitality. An English phrase book from 1958, optimistically titled Albanian for Travelers<\/em>, calmly notes the nation\u2019s \u201cmany strange and curious customs. Outside the cities and towns, no one seems to have told the local populace that it is not a good idea to kill strangers.\u201d The useful phrases offered in Albanian are not much more encouraging: \u201cI am sorry about your father\u2019s nose\u201d; \u201cWhy are your sheep looking at me?\u201d; and \u201cYour dog is already dead. Go away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The record stores I tried showed no Albanian records in their catalogs, had never heard of any, and simply wanted me to buy CDs of Andreas Vollenweider or Philip Glass and get the hell out. But there\u2019s nothing like a challenge to perk up the day and get the old blood moving again. Checking the New York phone book, I found the Albanian Mission to the United Nations at 184 Lexington Avenue and sauntered over to a dark, barely marked office.<\/p>\n

A small man with an even smaller black mustache sat behind a desk that was too big for him and dangled his legs menacingly. Without the energy to be either convincingly hostile or sufficiently confused, he sat in a mild stupor.<\/p>\n

I was apparently the first American to come through his door.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are on Albanian soil,\u201d he pouted, pointing to the rug. \u201cWho sent you here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one? How did you find this office?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re listed in the phone book.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHa.\u201d He turned and checked the phone book, watching me out of the corner of his eye, and then slammed the book shut. \u201cWe are listed in the phone book,\u201d he said with such vehemence that I had to agree with him.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes. You are. I\u2019m interested in Albanian music and I can\u2019t seem to find any records or tapes. I thought you might be able to help me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d he said sadly. \u201cNo one is interested in Albanian music. I myself am not even interested in Albanian music. You are a spy. You are on Albanian soil.\u201d Once again he pointed at the rug. \u201cGet out.\u201d<\/p>\n

As I said, there\u2019s nothing like a challenge to perk up the day, and this was clearly a challenge. I\u2019d forgotten the cardinal rule for dealing with bureaucrats: when in doubt, lie, bluff, bully, and gesticulate wildly. Now I no longer wanted just to find Albanian records, I wanted to go to Albania. I telephoned the following day and deepened my voice.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, hello, good morning, hello. Who am I speaking to, please?\u201d<\/p>\n

There was a vague mumble on the other end, like a sofa yawning.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, this is Brian Zcullman,\u201d I said, \u201cDr. Bass advised me to call you.\u201d (Dr. Bass, my dentist, is a large and at times fierce-looking man. Judging by what little I\u2019d seen of the Albanian officer\u2019s teeth, he would do well to stand clear of Dr. Bass.) \u201cI am going to be in Yugoslavia this fall, at conferences in Split and Belgrade, and as I am of Albanian heritage, I thought I\u2019d like to visit the country and see if I still have family there. Can you help me with a visa?\u201d<\/p>\n

Again there was a mumble on the other end and a request for my phone number. In a little over an hour, he called me back.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr Zcullman?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, I have very good news for you. At this time a visa is out of the question. Simply not possible. However,\u201d and here his vice expanded, bursting with pride, \u201cif you wish to be repatriated and once again be with your people and the people of your father, I think we can help you.\u201d<\/p>\n

I put the phone down very slowly. Your dog is already dead. Go away.<\/p>\n

Next to the listing for the Albanian Mission in the phone book is the address of Albanian Trimming, a tailor shop in Spanish Harlem. A couple of Cubans sat behind the counter.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnh-unh. No Albanians working here. The old owner, funny guy who used to wear slippers all the time, he was Albanian, but he sold the place. One of the younger guys who used to work here, he\u2019s Albanian. Last I knew he was working down the street at Jimmy\u2019s O Sole Mio.\u201d<\/p>\n

At Jimmy\u2019s, there were actually two Albanian waiters. I was the only customer, so they sat with me and poured me some Albanian wine that was bitter and smelled of damp fur.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou like this wine?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo.\u201d I am always truthful with waiters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is terrible. Still, it is better than Albanian music.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMuch better,\u201d said the second waiter.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlbanian music sounds like someone drowning in his soup.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it sounds like men with big sticks beating sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, it is more wet, like fish coughing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou really want to find Albanian records, go out to Queens. There\u2019s a Yugoslav record store that advertises on the radio that it has Albanian forty-fives and videocassettes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVideocassettes?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, bootlegged off of TV. Terrible stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

Record Bazaar, at 31-83 Thirty-Third Street in Queens, had jars of sour cherry preserves, copies of Yugoslavian cowboy magazines (Pony West<\/em>,\u00a0Vajat Erpi<\/em>, records of Yugoslavian punk bands Azra, Electric Orgazm), and an entire shelf of Albanian forty-fives and videotapes. One videotape showed three morose-looking men in ill-fitting Santa Claus suits sitting around a gaily lit Christmas tree and talking.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are telling each other jokes, funny Christmas stories,\u201d the woman in the store explained to me. However, after each joke, the men looked sadder and sadder until finally they slumped in their chairs and stared gloomily at the camera. Then the screen went blank. A Samuel Beckett Christmas.<\/p>\n

The forty-fives all have bright, folkloric covers showing people dressed very much like Ukrainian Easter eggs. On one of the covers they are aiming cannons at one another. On another they are brandishing bayonets. On a third they are waving flutes in the air and pointing at a helicopter. On all of the covers the people look cheerful and well-fed, but it\u2019s hard to tell whether anyone on the cover actually appears on the record. They may simply be models. My favorite songs so far are \u201cA Bunch of Sheep Are Going Out to Drink\u201d and \u201cTake a Look at That Mountain.\u201d You should come over and hear them sometime.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An earlier version of this piece appeared in the December 1985 issue<\/a> of\u00a0<\/em>Spin.<\/p>\n

Brian Cullman is a writer and musician living in New York City.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cullman, who collects records from all the nations of the world, recalls an especially arduous journey to track down 45s from Albania.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":375,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4393],"tags":[28938,2274,28939,28937,46,125,14627,1718,6664,10744,123,28940],"class_list":["post-111183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-first-person","tag-28938","tag-albania","tag-embassies","tag-forty-fives","tag-music","tag-new-york-city","tag-recordings","tag-records","tag-shopping","tag-the-cold-war","tag-travel","tag-united-nations"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy Quest for Albanian 45s (Circa 1985)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Brian Cullman, who collects records from all the nations of the world, recalls an especially arduous journey to track down 45s from Albania.\" \/>\n<meta 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