Mother Russia

Last night I finished reading Doruntine by Ismail Kadare. It was okay. I feel maybe a bit more was lost from the original than even usual as it's a translation of a translation (but as I can't read Albanian, or even French, I guess that's a moot point...). It took on an old Albanian folk tale (a ghost story) from a different perspective (turning it into more of a detective story). And which I wasn't familiar with the folk tale before reading this, it goes much like many folk tales go so I was able to pretend like it was a different take on something familiar. The past few days I'd been trying to get an Eduard Artemyev cd on discogs from his son who runs the label that puts his stuff out in Russia, but it was riddled with problems (and what would be considered red flags). He wanted either cash or western union. Normally wouldn't, but it wasn't a lot of money and I guess I figured it was worth the risk since he was using the name and email associated with the label and the family lineage. Anyway, my bank rejected the transfer and after some messaging back and forth and me expressing my reservations, the order was cancelled and he pointed me to the website of their US distributor! So now I can get it for even cheaper and more conveniently. So that worked out pretty well, I think. Haven't tried it yet but they take normal payments and stuff. That'd been going on the past couple days, so it's nice to have a resolution. Unless things go wrong when I try to order. Don't jinx it! We'll see soon enough.