Filming has started on Belgrade's last and greatest foray into the "willing suspension of disbelief," the epic saga under the working title of The Belgrade Waterfront. The avant-premier is scheduled for May 1, 2045, giving the publicists barely 30 years to get ready for the grand event. Half of the budget will be allocated in 2035.

None of the principle actors have arrived yet on the set, nor has the director - citing some unease about getting paid for half of it in 20 years - but the producers (Sheik Ali Xander & Associates) have so far put on a spectacle worthy of Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

What are the vital elements of a country's brand?

The branding of Serbia has been going through a very long series of false starts and misfires for as long as I have known about it. I was involved in an early post-transition project in 2004 and 2005, but the branding initiative was ultimately shelved because no one could address the elephant in the conference room:

What is Serbia's brand?

The past is in the future.

On December 23rd, my latest book, Grumpy in Belgrade: The Prehistory, will hit bookstores all across Belgrade. Impact craters from the collision are expected to form along Knez Mihailova. Please alter your routes accordingly.

The new book, which exists now in the future, is all about the past - the prehistory of my Serbian sojourn. The pieces collected in the new volume of grumpiness were written between 2002 and 2006 - just before I began posting them here on B92.

Fear. Hatred. Xenophobia. Paranoia. Jingoism. Isolation. Zealotry. Bellicism. Ethnocentricity. And bigotry.

Good morning, America.

I woke up this morning not to any kind of “New America” but to an America that has finally allowed its baser instincts to chew through the leash on which they have been held for many years and take charge.

There is nothing more sobering than being pulled over for walking under the influence.

According to the brain scientists and rocket surgeons whom we have elected to public office in Belgrade ("we" being loosely applied here), it is NOT enough to switch off the music early. It is NOT enough to close the bars, cafes, and restaurants by midnight. It is NOT enough to curtail the sale of alcohol after a certain hour. Now, if we have a few too many, we will have to sleep in the bars until morning.

When the loan officer at the bank offers you a load of carrots instead of cash, you will know that this is a Crisis.

Business is booming for the Prognosticators of Doom these days. All I am hearing from all sides is that the End is Near, speeches about the Demise of Consumerism abound, and that we are sliding into a time of feudal lords, manor houses, indentured servitude and mediaeval bartering.

LONDON, ROME, BELGRADE.  World Cup football (may God have mercy on our souls) has a self-contradictory role. On the one hand, here we have supreme nationalism wherein the world lines up in a sanctioned and authorized collective and protracted riot of Us against Them.

On the other Reusch-gloved hand, however, nothing unites us with our seemingly disinterested neighbors, distracted fellow Underground riders, and dyspeptic shopkeepers than being au fait on the latest World Cup babble.

The way I used to calculate it, at Christmas we usually got ONE day off. At New Year's we would also get ONE day to recover. Then it was immediately back to work, back to the office, back to normal.

Not so in Serbia.

In case you did not see it in evidence all around you we are in the POST-CRISIS.

The Serbian prime minister told AmCham this last week, so it MUST be true. Maybe the post-crisis period started on that morning and I was just too sleepy to notice.

Up until recently, we had only been in the POST-TRANSITION. We would use the word post-transition because it would indicate that there is still a little clutter lying around in the corners from the transition period. In fact, until it is all clear up, we might say that we are actually still in the transition but we have been so many years in transit that post-transition feels better. Maybe this is the pre-post-transition. Likewise the crisis. Pre-post-pre-crisis.

The Pilgrims, at Thanksgiving 1.0, were outnumbered almost two to one.

After washing up on Plymouth Rock in December of 1620, the 102 passengers of the Mayflower set about the task of conquering North America in the name of Puritanism. Religious fanaticism not being sufficient protection against Cold and Hunger, 46 of the original sinners died in the first winter.