Ever since I have heard about the Critical Mass I wanted to take part in one of these semi-emergent rallies. The only problem was that I have never lived in a city (or was at least not aware of the event during shorter trips) where Critical Mass bike rides would happen. Until now.

In Göteborg, as they usually do in other cities too, people gather with their bikes on the evening of the last Friday each month to ride through the city streets. It’s both a happening and a movement without an organized structure. The main goal of thousands of people around the world who gather in their cities is the promotion of car free cities. By flooding the streets en masse they make up an emergent movement with both a strong political and a social message.

I don’t own a bike here in Göteborg, but this did not discourage me from at least wanting to participate in the event. So, yesterday I set out to the very heart of Göteborg’s shopping district. It was Friday evening and the city streets were bustling with people. It looked promising. But at 6 o’clock I am standing on the square where critical massers should gather. Looking around I see only one girl with a bicycle looking a bit confused. So was I. Where are all the people who want to ride their bikes instead of cars; environmentalists and citizens who want cleaner air and environment; forward looking people; supporters of sustainable development? Where are they?

After five minutes of standing around bemused I approach the girl with a bike and ask her if she is here to participate in the Critical Mass. She is and it is her first time, just like it is for me. The only difference being that a friend invited her to come, thus she soon finds out where the meeting place is. It’s right across the street and we immediately notice three other cyclists there. I mean, they could just as well be random three friends meeting up for a pint of beer.

Two more participants come with their bikes, now numbering six in total. An absolute minimum I hear. And not exactly critical mass, if you ask me. When I’ve seen Still We Ride (make sure you check the trailer), a documentary about Critical Mass in New York that ended up in a clash with nervous and overly aggressive police, there were thousands of people there. They literally flooded the city with their bikes. It really was critical mass. Likewise in San Francisco, where the movement started back in 1992.

Quite naturally, if you want to make a statement by riding your bicycle in a car centered society, you have to multiply yourself by at least several tens or hundreds to get the message across. What happened on a beautiful sunny day in Göteborg yesterday would never bring up attention of passers-by, not to mention authorities who are usually interested in assemblies of all sizes, as one can find on the Critical Mass site:

When local police learn of your ride, they may insist that you get a permit, perhaps a parade permit. Don’t do it. The point of Critical Mass is that biking is a right, not a privilege. Cars don’t need permits to ride on the streets, and neither should cyclists.

Rebellious and rightfully so. But obviously the residents of Göteborg are very content. But I was dissillusioned. Especially when I got so pumped up for this event amongst other things reading the following:

Remember that CM is supposed to be a celebration of cycling, not your opportunity to see how much inconvenience you can cause to others. It’s about asserting our right to the road, not denying others their right to the road.

Check the Critical Mass Web site for a ride in your town. Join the ride and spread the word. If there are no Critical Mass rides in your town yet, be the innitiator. Here’s a few how-to tips. And don’t forget about the bicycle safety.

Ride on.

Mladen

The most charming thing about moving to a new place are all those new tiny everyday things in your surroundings. Flow of the traffic, getting used to the public transportation network, interesting food in the stores, differently looking people on the streets, the sound of the local language, the scents. You know, all those things to which the locals respond with “What? I’ve never noticed that!” when you mention them.

Most of the things I’ve already gotten used to, although there are still a few  that keep my gerbil running in my cranium. What follows is a medley of both.

All Swedes are blond. This is probably the most often heard generalization about Swedes. Not just by other Europeans, but also by their immediate neighbors such as Finns, for instance. Yes, Swedes are blond. Not all of them, but there are a lot of blonds. But surprisingly not really because of some odd genetic strain or isolated gene, as people like to believe. The reason is much shallower and more mundane: hair dye.

This is a wild guess, but I would say that Swedes are the biggest consumers of blond hair dye in the world. I have not figured out this one yet, but obviously they have been using it persistently enough to make everyone else believe that they are blond by nature. Which leads to another equally wide-spread cosmetological wonder of this land: orange skin.

It’s a bit difficult to comprehend this until you actually see it for yourself, but people in Sweden often have orange skin. It’s a fad. Male, female, young and old, all orange. I guess that geographical location of the country is too far up north for the sun to make the population tan naturally (especially during the winter). So they frequent their private artificial sun, i.e. solarium. Great.

But whatever the reason for their exposure to artificial UV rays, it seems like they don’t like to use the mirrors all that much. For the first few weeks of being here that was probably the weirdest and most uncomphrending novelty for me. Later this switched to picking out the most orange in a group or on the street, but amusement did not cease. Now I’ve gotten used to it so I only turn my head after the really exaggerated specimens, but still it’s fun.

To be continued.

Mladen

Two cool things happened yesterday. I’ve finally seen Dziga Vertov’s Man With A Movie Camera, a movie I’ve wanted to see for a long time now. Actually it was Lev Manovich’s great book The Language of New Media that brought my attention to it a few years ago. Manovich writes extensively about Vertov’s movie drawing parallels between the common characteristics of the movie and the today’s new media. Now that I have actually seen it, I can finally understand what is so hip about it.

If I didn’t know when it was made, I’m pretty sure I would have guessed wrong. Sure, it’s done in black-and-white and it’s without sound (the music accompanying it in contemporary version was done just recently according to Vetrov’s vision), both of which give it vintage look and feel. However, everything else about it is contemporary. Everything from (then) experimental editing, to length of cuts, dynamics, even topics it covers (technology).

This just a bit over an hour long film praises technology of it’s day. In 1929 that mostly meant machines and Vertov shows many in a truly poetic way. The film immediately reminded me of Godfrey Reggio’s quatsi trilogy, especially the first two films Koyaanisqatsi and Powaqqatsi. While the other story it tells is the story about a cameraman. Camera following camera, an issue which resurfaced in the last decade when there has been a lot of talk about remediation (Remediation: Understanding New Media by Bolter and Grusin is just one such example). So again, the movie is right on the spot.

While Vertov was fun, the other cool thing of the day was more educational. It was a lecture about lockpicking titled nothing else but “Locks, Lockpicking, Security” held by Mateusz Pozar at Valand School of Fine Arts. There’s really a lot about this topic out there on the Net, but it is so much more fun to hear someone talk about it in person.

Pozar covered pretty much everything from the historical development of locks to the very basic mechanical underpinnings of different kinds of locks. It was interesting to hear that locks have not changed much over the last two centuries, which I found to be rather surprising given all the other technological advances and how much we rely on locking up our stuff on every step. However, Pozar actually spared his audience from actually showing how to manipulate and pick locks, which I had expected to see with anticipation.

But what was really cool about the lecture were the tidbits. For instance, that already Egyptians were using wooden locks, which were opened with really large keys. That the guards at the Tower of London have been for the last 700 hundred years locking its doors every single day at exactly 7 minutes before ten o’clock in the evening encapsuled in just as old ceremony that looks more like a sketch today. And among other things also that the city of Detroit gave the keys to the city to no other than Saddam Hussein himself. I don’t know if I am really surprised by that.

Anyways, the lecture was more about the social aspects than the actual act as our speaker was still perfecting the skill. But for all you budding enthusiasts out there, here’s where you can start:
- The Open Organisation of Lockpickers
- Sportenthusiasts of Lockpicking Germany
- Lock Picking 101

Knowledge is power. Have fun.

Mladen

I’ve already written a few pieces about the incredibly complicated bureaucratic measures that are king in Sweden. Well, as it turns out I knew nothing about it at the time. Here comes more and I don’t know if I’m all that much surprised. From the local news outlet:

Revellers frequenting venues where music is played are best advised to consult with the landlord before making any sudden movements. Should the bar lack a special dancing licence the owner may wind up in trouble with the forces of law and order.

“If somebody begins dancing at a place that doesn’t have a dancing licence, the landlord is obliged to immediately turn down the music and stop the dancing,” police spokesman Christer Ohlin told newspaper Södermalmsnytt.

Read the whole piece (in English) here and watch those hips of yours while in Sweden.

Mladen

Seeing a doctor is hardly ever fun. Not because seeing people you know or meeting new people wouldn’t be fun, rather because usually when you have to see one, most likely there’s something wrong with you. Unless you have a spouse who is a doctor, that is, although even then seeing one can be unnerving. You never know if they’re gonna sit in their chair behind a heavy mahogany desk and just out of the blue proclaim that you have cancer, or do something similarly annoying.

Anyway, I don’t really like paying a visit unless I really have to. But as it usually turns out, I am always merry when I walk out of the doctor’s office. And this is a bit strange, I have to admit, since my gladness is not necessarily associated with the doctor’s confidently upbeat forecast about my ailments. Rather, it is related to the mere experience of seeing a doctor. And I tell you, seeing doctors in different countries is fun and I encourage you to do so. Whenever you travel abroad, go visit a doctor. I mean this sounds a bit unethical, stealing their precious time just to feed your insatiable curiosity … but if you have a slightest health problem, don’t be shilly-shally about walking into a hospital.

Especially if you’re one of those typical tourists, most likely staying in a hotel, going on that same bus trips the rest of the group took, dinning with the same people, frying on the beach with them and playing poker, sipping whiskey and smoking cigars in the evenings. You might have just as well stayed at home and done the same thing. You experience nothing about the place you’ve been to for a whole damn week. Boring.

I think I’ll never forget my first visit to a GP in Finland. First of all, Finns, like many Western countries, have an interesting curiosity of calling in before you drop in. OK, if your arm falls off, then you can just walk into the ER. But otherwise, it’s wise to call. And so did I. That was back then when I thought Finns understood my version of Finnish as well as I did, so negotiation over social security numbers, first and last names and not to mention the exact time and date of my visit took a while over the phone. But there I was, just a few days later I walk into the doctor’s office. After a brief talk about why I came in the first place, he pulls out of his pocket a tuning fork and, bang, hits it on the wall, places the two-pronged device on the top of my head and starts asking questions. I dropped my jaw and remaind speechless from the divertion he had just created with practice unbeknown to me. Even though there was nothing funny about my illness, I went home with a big smile on my face.

That same month I went to see a Finnish dentist. (Yes, it was an exciting month.) I’m not really sure if I ever fully comprehend what the doctors are talking around me even if they are speaking languages I speak fluently, but nevertheless that time at the dentist was especially uncomprehensible and eerie. First I was told to sit down, but then the dentist leveled off the chair into a bed. I don’t know why did I first have to sit down, just to be laying the next moment. Couldn’t have they just told me to lie down on the bed in the first place? OK, I said to myself, fancy pants technology they have, a chair that turns into a bed. But just a moment later dentist’s assistant covers my body with a white sheet and places sinister-looking violet 80’s sports shades over my eyes. I had no idea what game we were playing. Albeit I was quickly reminded that it was me who had volunteered for my bones to be drilled. Sick fun. Yuck.

Fast forward several months later to Sweden.

Just a couple of days ago I again decided to make another field trip to the doctor’s. New country, new customs, a whole new thing. And I must say I was not disappointed. Not at all. The experience at the general practitioner’s was again first on the list. After the already usual who are you, where are you from and why don’t you have a Swedish social security number episode, I’m sitting in the waiting room to first see the nurse who’ll deliver the verdict if I need to see the doctor at all or whether I’m just a fakeo. This step is a bit tricky, I must admit. So, if you’re planning to pay a visit to a Swedish house of health, be prepared, as they will want to establish firm evidence of your ill-being before you get to shake the doctor’s hand. Now that you know the trick, it’s your turn to try.

Nurse waves the green flag. After a sigh of relief I find myself sitting in the waiting room again, my heart pounding at 120 bpm. Here comes the doctor, a young lad, probably my age, dressed in worn out jeans and wearing dirty, white All-stars torn from last night’s skating. A doctor with street cred, no doubt about that. The rest was practically routine. Besides, of course, asking me would I mind if he would bring in a few colleagues in to check this ‘phenomenon’ as he called my sick state. ‘Not at all,’ I replied. I guess I wasn’t the only one cheerfully walking to school that day even though the final diagnosis was: there’s nothing we can do for you, go see another doctor, pal.

Next week, the dentist. Eek.

Mladen