– Gjon Bruçi –
Dedicated to yesterday’s episode of “BIG Brother – VIP”
Oh democracy, I’ll take even your bad side,
You’ve slapped tin onto monotonous life;
All kinds of faces brought from across the sea,
With them, you rattle the brains of the people.
Well done for the men — you brought in betting sports,
Dozens of casinos where they pour out the jackpot;
For the young girls — beauty pageants and runways,
For housewives and grannies — loads of soap operas.
Great news — eyes turn wide with excitement,
Here comes “Big Brother,” the newest toy;
Prepared in Tirana, a selection committee,
People rush in — the competition begins.
Whoever gets lucky will be filled with joy,
To become a resident of the famed house;
There, oh my dear, you eat salad for free,
Chatter heats up and the fun explodes…
Whoever enters “Big Brother” becomes an “Ace” figure,
A swarm of journalists follows after them;
Interviews begin, the stories get polished,
Fans line up to get autographs.
We who are outside burn with envy,
Oh how we love the life inside the cage;
That cage of a house — everyone dreams of it,
Because that’s where the game is played… for one hundred million!
But it’s not just the money in this story,
The cage-house is something new;
There they run trials for the latest trends,
On how it’s possible to live herded in a pack.
* * *
Once we used to put monkeys in cages,
Now instead, we’ll stuff the whole village inside;
From the Englishman Darwin, we learned the story,
Now we’ll try to go back to the origin…
(“Strange World” – 2010, translated from the Albanian original)