A window to see the results

Finnished a project that's been lying about for long, a lacy edged victorian nightcap. DON'T ask me why I started making it. Or who or what it's for. It's still needs blocking and cleaning after an unfortunate affair with a newspaper...
Would be a very nice complement for bethanthepurple 's latest project - the sock. Anyone up for knitting a gown?
( Photos under cut... )

Now sitting well in order ready to smite the sounding furrows. Or, at least I've got tickets now for the first leg on my way to Scotland. I'll be spending the night in Birmingham, so if there are any erhm Brumlings up for sharing the evening I would be delighted to. (Though, judging from experience, probably crooked and bent from hauling 60+ kgs of luggage through the Paris and London metros)

In case anyone is wondering, how I'm doing here's a little stack of photos with scenery from around here. I've left out people to avoid privacy concerns altogether:
http://picasaweb.google.com/terekool/LaCharenteMaritime#

You can see the scenery from my little window change from March to June, there a photo of me in an incredible twelve-stemmed tree, and one of the 1805 farmhouse I live in.
For those who don't know, I'm staying in France, working for Emmaüs in my nice little community, having an incredibly
wonderful and satisfying time, in ways that are indescribable enough not to be mentioned here. Just imagine me, far out in the French countryside, listening to 'Sugar Baby Love' and 'Message in a Bottle' on an orange portable gramophone (why on earth did we give up on those in favour of cd's?) and sipping Brûlot Charentais, the local cognac-coffee speciality.


Still a lot of preparations going on for the big move to Scotland this fall. I'm almost sure that I'll be going to Bicon this year, so I'll be looking for someone in the UK who will be able to babysit a suitcase for a couple of weeks...


and here's some entertainment for the rest of you:
http://www.wulffmorgenthaler.com/strip.aspx?id=94499130-df29-4296-82fb-4603ddb4dcb8

Love & Anarchy and all the rest,
Jens

Here's to let you all know that I've been offered a place at St Andrews.
So, starting from this September I'll, erhm, be in your Scotland, studying your Social Anthropology and Russian.
I wasn't exactly counting on getting in, so my head is still in the process of wrapping itself around the idea, getting little seizures of bouncy excitation from time to time.

Curious side-note: One thing that somehow motivated me to apply for University was a dream I had late this fall, and now it makes sense in a very elegant way... :)

I'm probably just about to leave Denmark anyway, since it's getting too expensive for me to stay. So I'm bound to very busy the next short while sorting out finances, bureaucratic paperwork, moving and discarding "stuff" etc. One. Thing. At. A. Time.

Sure, there's a lot of people and things I'll miss here, but I've always had an ambivalent relationship with this place. Guess I'll be able to see some people on my f-list more. Now feels like the right time.

Hugs to go around...

@ earwigmc : will be in touch soon :o)

Let's see who will be hanging from a cross by midnight... ;)

[edit:] Phew! Made it by 23:14 gmt.

So, it began with quite a sizeable earthquake for this part of the planet, and has so far contained: Two demonstrations, four parties all lasting well into the morning and one of them ending with me passing out in the most unexpected and disturbing way.  A copious amount of swimming and extremely satisfying sex. A number of valuable conversation. A new tiny nephew added to the family. Jamming. Upside down christmas trees being trashed.

All in all an explosive combination of exceptional events and overcompensation for this entire autumn. And maybe there's something in the air. I hope it won't keep up for too long...

The past few days have seen me terribly energetic and optimistic. I suspect I'm still a bit wobbly underneath, but it certainly seems internal tectonics are shifting, releasing a lot of uncontrollable energy. Drastic measures are being taken :-P

This weekend we had the first big international meeting for coordinating the activist mobilisation towards next year's climate summit in Copenhagen (UN COP 15). A whole ten hours of meeting a day, in the very painstaking way that such coordinating activist meetings can be - especially when they span great political and geographical areas. All in all we had 21 countries represented, organisations from India, Brazil and the Philippines, Africa was the only continent, barring Antarctica without representation. All that taken into consideration it was surprisingly easy for us to agree on a united call for action. Which is being translated and will circulate soon. Now there's going to be a huge work ahead for the network - the biggest problem will be how to accomodate tens of thousands in Copenhagen in the middle of the winter in a just reasonably economically and ecologically feasible way...

The rules are simple.

If you want to fuck the person who posts this, send them a reply saying "I'd fuck you."

But then, you have to post this in your journal, in exchange.

And we can have a wide definition "fuck."


*** Should one screen comments? ***

mhm...

So I'm back in Denmark...

And I "&¤/#"&%¤ missed Scream Club playing at the queer festival!

Apart from that the weather is varying from gray and soggy to stormy with cataclysmic rain.

I can't imagine staying here for long, unless there's a free room in my friends collective, I might try to make it past BiCon this year, or maybe just slip away as fast as possible before I'm sucked down into a storm drain never to be seen again.

Oh yes, I will make pictures and recordings available when I get a chance...

I now own a bisexual pirate t-shirt! Pics below cut...

Yesterday the 70th weekly demonstration after the eviction of Ungdomshuset was held. That was also the last, since we will get the first part of the building which is going to be the new youth house on tuesday. So, it's been some struggle, a demonstration every week for seventy weeks, hundreds of kilometers. And this is the end of the road, and the beginning of another. Which is also going to be hard in some ways. But I'm pleased / well worn. Photo (slightly kinky) below cut...

It looks like I'm finally going to get my visa now. My plane tickets are set, I'm just waiting for the ones for the train. I'm slowly starting to get used to the idea of where I'm going. And starting to get excited.
I also just discovered that I will also be helping out with the International Throat-singing Symposium in Kyzyl as well! WEEE!!! :D

Yup. Yours truly got arrested - again. Just like Brittany Spears I just can't seem to stay out of trouble long can I...
I got arrested while trying to block a deportation to Iraq which was being carried out despite objections from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Amnesty, despite the fact that it's not quite legal.
11 Iraqi citizens have been arrested for deportation, so far 4 of them have been deported, and one deportation is, hopefully, temporarily halted. They have all been convicted of various crimes, and completed their prison sentences. This is quite significant because attempts are being made to deport a lot larger group of Iraqi asylum-seekers, and the legal basis for deporting them is no different. These have so far not been deported because of huge political and legal opposition, so deporting a few criminals who are not likely to stir the same support from politicians, media and the public, and whose lawyers (from what I'm told) are neither good nor at all interested in their cases. The government first claimed that they had an agreement with the government of Iraqi government to receive the deportees (and to guarantee their humane treatment). When it was discovered that there wasn't such a thing, the claim was changed to state they only had the papers granting the deportees access. The Iraqi embassy and foreign ministry however, say they do not know the slightest thing about the whole affair. They are instead in negotiations about an agreement concerning the 357 asylum seekers.
So, there was a (second) attempt to block the check in of the airplane in an attempt to get the Captain who has final authority over who gets on the plane to refuse the deportation, and ultimately influence the airline. The first attempt went a lot better. The police were more prepared this time and several off those tiny details to coordination went wrong. It's easy to imagine how difficult it is to get into a heavily guarded and surveyed airport, in large numbers, and all get to the same check in at the exact same time. Most of the activists had their id checked and were removed from the airport very quickly, so were all journalists. Two people bought tickets and managed to get into the boarding area to hand out flyers for a while. There was however an ok amount of press coverage, so it didn't fail entirely. As for the deportees they have all been arrested upon arrival, two of them have been released again though. They don't have money, some can depend on relatives for a place to stay, others not. People are working on getting the rest of them better legal aid, and AFAIK one case is being reconsidered...

Apart from that an unofficial extension to the free town of Copenhagen, Christiania is being made. A road was blocked, a party held, and construction commenced for the greater part using old discarded building materials from Christiania and tools the local residents brought. Most people were not so well prepared, so tools were few and building improvised and slow. I helped a few friends making a house on poles out in harbour. I just hope they have the strength and patience to finish it well, they're all so terribly young and inexperienced. Full of ideas and so on. And I hope it gets to stay and develop in peace, at least for a while, however naïve that may be. One of the problems Christiania has is that they have been quite bad at letting in 'fresh blood' to continue what they started and to learn from them, this could ideally help that a bit.

Yesterdays bad news is that the Russian Embassy refused my application for visa, because the documents I've been given apparently only are valid for certain countries, Denmark not included. Much, much bother will ensue... :(

Love to you all

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twlAq0Q7TTM
WiseMonkey explores the bisexual jungle...

Yesterday I watched the Russian WWII movie "Иди и Смотри" or "Come and See". It might just possibly be the most gruesome and disturbing movie I have seen. And one of the best. So, Go and See it, but expect nausea and similar side effects.

Last night I received my visa-invitation thingy. It's now official. Im going to Тыва! Yay!

I've also won my trial, thus I can claim compensation for unjustified detention. Also I won't have "possession of illegal weapon" on my criminal record.

...right in the face, at 30 cm...( Here's the story: )

We've accepted the buildings and dates given for the new Youth House, so that process is continuing. The local council originally and dramatically refused the agreement, but they admitted in private that it was 'just politics', and they actually asked our negotiation team when they were meeting: what do you think we should demand from the city council in return. And so, the agreement has been topped with a new library and several other boons. My personal favourite is the possible removal of the gas station right in front of the building. The culture house it will be sitting next is also positive, at least the people running it, some of the groups might be a bit grumpy at being moved around (There is a dancing group that's moving into an old crematorium, but I'm told it's been renovated).

In personal news I propably just lost my case in court yesterday. The judgement hasn't been pronounced, but since the judge was practically running the case for the police-attourney I don't think I have many chances. So yes, walking down the pavement with a flag can be criminal in Denmark! They didn't argue that it was a weapon, or even that it was intended as a weapon. But that someone else might take it from me, and use it as a weapon. So next time watch out were you park you car or your bicycle. Don't ever carry un umbrella, just in case you get arrested...

I also got a new computer yesterday. It rules. Windows Vista sucks. Shall put in Ubuntu 8.04 sometime. Finally I no longer have to put coins and slips of paper into my powersupply, or prod it with a screw driver to get it to work for 5 minutes...

Well at least one big step closer, after about 400 days, 57 weekly demonstrations and countless others since the eviction last March, and a very very impressive work by the team negotiating with the politicians for the past half year. A proposition for a contract has been written and signed for by a majority of the city council. The whole matter has obviously been rushed through because of a huge blockade of the city hall which was meant to take place in two days, and it seems like the, not very sympathetic, major has been acting quite autocratically to make it happen and her staff is probably going to have some heavy overwork to make things happen as fast as she's promising. That's politics, ironically this time it will be our advantage that she is as self-serving as she is.

A-ny-way. The proposal was discussed at emergency plenary today, and it looks good. That means acceptable. That means the blockade is changing it original plan to a backup, Plan F, which is a street party instead of a blockade. And it means that a preliminary agreement will probably be accepted next Monday. People were only cautiously optimistic, but the meeting was completely unanimous without any discussions. Anyone who's participated in consensus based decision-making, or any other kind for that matter should appreciate how rare that is... Nothing is set in stone yet, but...

So, it seems like I chose a good time to come back from my exile. There'll be much to do in the time to come. Of course there'll be complaints as well, especially from a certain conservative politician who has been turning up in the media as a 'concerned neighbour' to all of the sites proposed as a replacement for Ungdomshuset. Most of them gobble it up, and the tabloid press often conveniently forget to mention his political background. Obviously he tends to gather quite a crowd, some of it a travelling crowd. But this time I happen to have become a neighbour too, as the proposed building is about 500m away, so I'll have my word to say as well when he calls for public meetings...

Wow. such a long year.

This bird has flown north again. Back to the cold and windswept shores of Denmark, where the snow is still falling. Some change from 20C in the sun, but I still like it. I'm mainly back to scrape up some funds for going to a volonteer project in Ytyk-Khjël this summer. And then of course to go to court against the bill, and maybe get a license to conduct these strange big metal beasts...

And I've already got a nest, with a little aid from Nike... Or, well, perhaps rather my two friends who are going to be out of the country for exactly the amount of time I am staying here. It a nice big bright apartment with some defaults that seems very small to someone like me who is accustomed to living in places where the shower is a bucket of hot water, or you where you have to dig a whole in the gound to go to the toilet. I am going to miss the countryside though, and living with (gasp) other people. I might even miss the French... Well, maybe a few of them...

The anticyclonic conditions have brought an early spring to us here in charente. It's 14-16 degrees in the afternoon, flowers have started to pop out of the ground in the vineyards, the mimosas are flowering, and in the nearby towns spring is starting to affect people as well causing increasing commotion on tennis courts and promenades and an equal increase in exposed skin.

Work is wonderful and diverse under these conditions and I'm getting promoted quickly. I get to see a lot of people. And just about everything the planet has known in the past 100 years passes through my hands from ancient woodworking tools, soiled underpants and ceramic bathtubs to pianos, 80 year old cognac and firearms. And about once a month, 4-5 tonnes of 15 kilo sacks catched and thrown in old fashioned human chain to go on to the mythic Western Textile Recycling Initiative, all before breakfast of course.

I'll save all the stories of death, unfortune, persecution and so forth for another day, right now the air is full of hope and sunshine. It's nice to be away from the smoldering fires of Denmark where something has been smelling in the fridge since well before Shakespeare's time. And it's a bit like living in a pocket out of time in some ways chez Emmaüs far out in the countryside. Above the fireplace l'Abbé Pierre is smiling down from his painting with an amused glint to the eye...