benn:org

Now hitch-biking, Travel Plan updated

meinhard — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 12:44:16 +0000

Yep, after working like there is no tomorrow for G+J in Hamburg for a few months — hence the silence here — I am officially on the road again. Still hitch-hiking, but now accompanied by a fully featured small fold-up bike (R+M Birdy premium + mud guards + back carrier) — I call it hitch-biking. Getting from Hamburg to Vienna via Schwerin and Munich was surprisingly easy, despite the relatively big cargo. This tells you how much unused space there is in cars on the road. One empty truck took the bike into its empty cargo room — there would have been room for hundreds of bikes, even unfolded! Anyway, all those moments when I badly wished for a bike while walking for kilometres from a drop-off point to the next good starting point are now past. Unfold bike, mount Greenpeace bags, be cycling happily, cycle a little further just for the fun of it. :)

Just so you have a better chance to get hold of me, here is my current Travel Plan for this summer.

Branka Meinhard Zgonjanin Benn

meinhard — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 06:32:16 +0000

Just to let you know that today Branka Zgonjanin and me will change our names to Branka Zgonjanin Benn and Meinhard Benn Zgonjanin at the occasion of our wedding in Belgrade. If this is a surprise to you, note that you are not the only one. :)

We will tell about more about this living art collaboration project here in a short while. Check out the gallery. Now off to to the registry office!

And no, I will not twitter this. :-P

Update: Some pictures of the big day

The Story of Stuff

meinhard — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:04:34 +0000

Here is a wonderful animated film on consumption called The Story of Stuff. Don’t be fools, people — live sustainably! ;)

Thirty

meinhard — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:05:08 +0000

30 .. days in a month .. hours of work per week .. years of war .. seconds of advertisement .. days of grief .. hours a day .. light-years of Orion .. centuries of over-civilisation .. milliseconds to Otter .. minutes of silence .. months to travel .. years of Meinhard. :)

The banana analogy

meinhard — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 13:49:24 +0000

This morning I found a banana on the street and I picked it up. Simple thing to do, but think about it for a moment. You see it from a few meters away, this perfectly fine banana, in the middle of a parking area, you are rushing to work in a disconnected group of office workers coming from the metro. Um, yummy. It’s like someone has placed it there for you. A trick? But maybe it just fell out of someone’s bag. How does a banana fall out of a bag? There is without doubt something fishy and tempting about this banana.

This is what I expect the two seconds to be like, between the moment when a driver spots me standing beside the street, looking for a hitch, and passing by me. The brave person stops and picks me up.

PS: Hey, this is my blog, I can write what I want, OK? :o) Real news: I am living and working in Hamburg for a few months now, going to the BeWelcome developer (un)conference in Antwerp for the weekend.

Buy Nothing Day video

meinhard — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 10:38:05 +0000

We made a short film (8 minutes) on our Buy Nothing Day action on November 23rd — enjoy the show! Thanks to Sabina for filming, Cox for editing and lending the camera, and all the remarkably self-aware zombies for leaving their hide-outs for the occasion.

Urban weirdness

meinhard — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:59:45 +0000

Last night “after work” at 3am I cycled home from Berlin-Mitte to Berlin-Friedrichshain. A nice cycle, first through a hip bar area full of new wealth, along the old shiny TV tower right through the heart of the former capital of the GDR with all its concrete monuments that people live or work in. Currently Alexanderplatz, the eastern centre, is a tacky Christmas market — which of course will close before Christmas. I go on for a few kilometers always straight on wide streets, bicycle paths and across huge intersections deep into my kiez (Berlinish for neighbourhood). Even at this hour of the night the city does not sleep, taxis rush by, some people walk their dogs, lost men walk around.

Also creeps come out. About half the way, on a wider footpath with the bicycle path on it a group of three young people in their latest urban wear comes my way. I accelerate a little, the dynamo whines some more. One of the guy walks near the bicycle path as I approach, and as I pass him he throws what I believe was an empty can at me, misses and shouts something like “You rat!” — I utter a quick deep “Hey!” — Apparently enough provocation for them to shout more nasty things as I quickly cycle on, crossing a red light. When looking back after a few seconds I see that they must have run after me for a bit and now are still standing looking after me. Wow, ticking time bombs out on the streets at night! What makes them so angry? I was just a random person passing by on a bike. I walk through dark parks at night in Bucharest, and I feel safer. At least there I would know what a person getting in my way wants from me, and I could just empty my pockets. I mean, my three friends just seemed bored and deeply frustrated, looking for some excitement. What went wrong?

I can only hope that people would have helped me in any way if those weirdos really would have wanted to attack me. So, if you see a scene like this some time, somewhere, please at least intervene and ask what’s going on and if everyone is OK, call help if needed. Never ever just look away. It never happened to me so far, but I know this is common in big cities. If social fabric is knit tightly though and even unknown people relate to each other we all gain quality of live, can let go of fears and focus on things that are important to us.

Earlier that night I went to Siggi and Jason’s talk about their No G8 Japan 2008 mobilisation tour through East Asia, learned a lot about Japanese activism and had some nice spicy Wasabi rice crackers. :)

Buy Nothing Day

meinhard — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 16:50:21 +0000

Tomorrow I will be part of a small action encouraging people to reflect on their shopping and consumption habits. See all the details on the Buy Nothing Day Berlin 2007 page. I was just contacted by a journalist for a bigger German magazine and he might be with us tomorrow. Funny how quickly small ideas sometimes spread.

Update: The action was good fun! As expected we got we got kicked out of the entry lounge after a few minutes by a more or less friendly security guard. “May I ask what you are doing here?” During the 2 hours of zombie play in front of the shopping centre we handed out 200 leaflets and probably scared about 2000 shoppers. See the photos and join us next time! :)

Oil 21 conference, free Berlin

meinhard — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 09:12:04 +0000

This weekend The Oil of the 21st Century is hosting a conference in Berlin. Tonight at 9pm there will be a free party at Tucholskystraße 6 with free food and drinks. Remember, it’s all free. :o) Entrance to the conference events is 3 EUR though. Today at 3pm Alan Toner, whom I met at several hack meetings before, is part of a presentation about defending your rights in the Digital Rights (TM) world.

Berlin keeps me busy, last night I went to the Ubuntu Linux version 7.10 release event at C-Base, on Wednesday to a rather breath-taking Cum2Cut performance and a few days before I was at a talk of Naomi Klein about her new book “The Shock Doctrine“. I had free Lunch 2.0 at Plazes and promptly got offered two jobs as a web hack0r, one of them related to Free Software which I accepted (more about this from November on).

Next up is Lunch 2.0 at Viif on November 5th and some of the events of Oil 21 taking place during the next weeks. I also got an almost free bicycle and a cosy place to stay at Micha’s in the Kreuzberg district. So I’m all set for being sucked into the urban magnet of Berlin for an exciting Winter 2.0!

Free Burma!

meinhard — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 13:01:38 +0000