benn:org

Phew, a lot of things to do during the meeting. Because I arrived some weeks ago I know the place quite well and can help with fixing and finding things. It keeps me busy and I hardly find the time to check my email. The activist crowd is fantastic. We’re all on pretty much the same wave length and it’s great fun to be creative and productive together. So many colourful influences and new ideas from everywhere. It’s hard to put it into words. Good to see that “we are many”! 🙂 Over the next days we will redefine how we can do stuff together in the EYFA network.

Yesterday the old Rojc barracks that I’m living in got a whole new side to it. The theatre group in the third floor had their open day and so there were screenings of their performances, concerts, exhibitions and all sorts of creative activity all day. Food was being served and there was some kind of electronic music party at the end. I met a lot of people that I have seen around the building before. So that was a nice addition to the trashy punk culture going on in the basement.

Tomorrow the EYFA winter meeting with around 50 activists from all over Europe officially starts and there is many little things to be done and organised before. More and more participants arrive and give the barracks a nice breeze of international air, which was long-awaited by me.

“Now that the show is over, and we have jointly exercised our constitutional rights, we would like to leave you with one very important thought: Some time in the future, you may have the opportunity to serve as a juror in a censorship case, or a so-called obscenity case. It would be wise to remember that the same people who would stop you from listening to ‘Boards of Canada’ may be back next year to complain about a book, or even a TV programme. If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you can be told what to say or think. Defend your constitutionally-protected rights. No one else will do it for you. Thank you.”

A fancy dress carnival party on Saturday and a trip to the mountains today – a fun weekend! Yesterday the punk crowd exchanged their rivet leather jackets and combat trousers with Star Trek uniforms and pink tutus. They met for the “Maskenbal” in the club right under the place that I sleep in. Not the MP3 jukebox was playing the ever same tunes again and again, but a DJ. Karaoke all night, dear god, give me a break. The rest was business as usual: Many people dancing and pogoing until early in the morning, the music way too loud (aua, my ears are still sore) and much, much “Bambus”, a mix of cheap cola and cheap wine, brought in (multi)litre bottles from home. All in all I (dressed as a Buddhist monk collecting contributions – including black ombrella so the sun doesn’t burn my shaved head which is not shaved at the moment) had great fun. (Last night I decided to use a lot of brackets in future because they are very easy to read)

Today early in the morning, after 2 hours of sleep or so – no clue how I managed to get up on time, oh I set a cron job on my laptop to play an MP3, alarm clock broken – I was picked up by Barbara and three other people from Zelena Istra in order “to go to the snow”. The word snow sounded interesting enough to accept the invitation the night before without knowing what’s going to happen. We drove to the mountains near Rijeka some 60 km away and got off near a ski lift. Wow, I felt like being teleported to a different world: Many people in strange colourful space suits flying by over the ground without moving their feet! Others speeded around on loud, completely useless machines that look like big scooters but have chains instead of weels in the back and a pair of skis for steering. Man, haven’t been in a ski resort in ten years or so. We ignored all this and walked up to a peak 1500 metres high, enjoyed the view, passed life threatening icy steep rises, fell an laughed a lot and plumped back into the car completely knackered five hours later. Just beemed back to the mother ship. What a tour. Didn’t expect *that*!

Today was the first real hands-on action in preparation to the EYFA winter meeting here in Pula. We were bringing some 40 mattrasses from a place 10 min away to here. Great, eh? Apart from that I’m spending my days enjoying the fast Internet connection, working a little bit and strolling around town or walking to the seaside. Every Saturday and Sunday I collect the garbage from the area around the punk club. Javier left to Belgrade for some days. So nothing too exciting happening, but it’s very relaxing.

Last night’s birthday party (mine) was great. Javier, my Spanish/Ecotopian roommate, is an amazing vegetarian cook and so we went to the market in the morning to buy loads and loads of veggies and other nice ingredients. After preparing the place with candles and a little clean-up and cooking for 2 hours or so, the random people that I invited from around the building arrived to the kitchen and started eating, drinking and chatting. Later on more people from the punk club in the basement came along and after a while we all went to the club. By accident I found out that it was someone else’ birthday as well, so we all had great fun together – nice one. 🙂

Ahh, just came back from swimming in the sea at cosy 9 degrees temperature outside and 12 degrees in the water. The sea was a little rough, but it was really sunny and not too windy. Tomorrow again?

Last weekend finally the bearing of the enourmous noise coming from rehearsal rooms all around the building and especially the punk club that I am sleeping right on top paid out! There was a great concert of a weird music combo from South Africa in the very same club that causes so many sleepless nights. The band was called Boo. Pretty clever to call a band Boo, the whole audience was booing them out loud and Boo loved it. They were actually asking for it. I got in for free, had great fun and the club was packed.

More great things happened during the week. After messing aound with a lot of antenna equipment, wireless access points and wardriving through the city we finally got our wireless Internet link. This means I now have very, very fast Internet all day long! Also I got an old 486DX2-66 computer with 16MB RAM running as a diskless thin client with LinuxTSP. We now can use this one in the HackLab here for Internet surfing. And did you know: 0100110101011010! So, now you know what state of mind I’m in..

I’m in Pula one week now. It has been sunny three of these days and I even got a light sunburn from cycling in the sun too much. I feel quite happy here. I have not done much work on the EYFA meeting preparation yet, but I’m sure there is loads to do soon. When I’m not cycling around town I am in the Monte Paradiso building cooking in the kitchen, doing stuff with my laptop or reading. Things are quite relaxed. I started messing around with some ten years old computers to make them running as Internet surf terminals in the HackLab here. Some things are quite tricky to get running. Loads of research on the Linux Terminal Server Project software and tinkering around needed. Put the fun back into computing – Use Linux! 😉 Sorry the link below to the Pula map doesn’t work anymore because they updated their site, no time to fix this now. OK, that’s all.

Pula is beautiful! Feels just like being somewhere in Italy – really confusing. Roman buildings all around, palm trees, hilly narrow streets with scooters, a big Amphitheatre, mediterranean flair, plus a huge port and beaches. Yeah!

Two days ago I took the train from Belgrade to Zagreb. Big thanks to all the wonderful people in Beograd that helped me with accomodation and having great two weeks in the city of Danube and Save after all: Ljubica, Sasha, Branka, Jelena & Milosh, Goran, Sanya, Igor, Hauke, Tanya & Djole, Milan, Dina, Maya, Branko, Ivana & Mauro (and many more). No thanks to the brutal airheads in the former “Rebel house” and the bus ticket inspector that tried to rip me off for using a wrong (more expensive!) ticket. After some 20 minutes of haggling and him threatening to call the police I just walked off telling him I will call my “advokat” now. He gave up and handed me back my ID card.

In Zagreb Javier who just came from Barcelona picked me up from the train station and we went to the “Villa Kiseljak”. Finally a real squat! A nice house with some green around it, loads of arty junk in the garden and on the walls. Nice music coming from an old record player, the little outlandish residents sitting beside the oven in the central room, a library, a working kitchen, water from canisters and a dog.

This morning Javier and me hitchhiked the 250 km to Pula in just 5 hours. We had a look around the huge Roitsh barracs and “Monte Paradiso” (a floor inside the baracks) where we will stay for the next six weeks until the EYFA winter meeting. At the moment I am in the HackLab inside the baracks which provides free Internet to the people, on Linux computers. I will now see if I can connect my laptop here.. 🙂