An odd development occurred recently: My aunt got me a Kindle for my birthday… I’m unsure how I feel about it. While I am certainly excited to have a new gadget to play with I have some issues with this particular device, it’s unnecessary. Like even more unnecessary than the Chumby I also own.

To start with, I’m not much of a reader, however I really believe good design for function is about boiling something down to the essentials… Books are already as simple as can get, they are a beautiful example of functional perfection.  Amazon doesn’t look at it this way though, the Kindle is a replacement not for the book, which needs no replacement, but for one’s personal library. The Kindle is a replacement for our bookshelves… and in that regard it’s a beautiful example of simplification of an idea… except most people don’t have a problem with owning too many books. Those who do are often passionate readers who are happy to loan or give away their books, and some people buy books simply to put them on the shelves as part of a collection. The Kindle misses all of these functions.

So what appeals about the Kindle to me?

The free lifetime wireless internet access. The latest version of the Kindle is global… the web browser kinda sucks, but it could seriously come in handy the next time I go to Europe and want to Tweet or catch up with my RSS feeds. Assuming I can get a handle on my RSS feeds to begin with…

We’ll see what I think after a few months of owning the thing.

Berlin is an interesting place. We spent all of last night at Fischladen where I left off last night. When we left it was morning. While Aki worked furiously on her work for Johnson Creek; Vanessa, Mouse and I discussed the merits of Wi-Fi, Twitter and technology in general in political movements, in particular the leftist “Anarchist” movement here in Berlin.

The German leftist movement has a fear and misunderstanding of technology. Wi-Fi in many places is not allowed and approached angrily. While 78 is legally owned and inhabited many individuals here are very much afraid of being identified for their political actions. Their fears, of course, are justified, many could and would be arrested if identified. However the group fails to mobilize and grow beyond it’s existing circles from what I can tell, most don’t even have cell phones either because they can’t afford them, or they believe them to be the tools of the establishment. Their numbers, while supported internationally are not as strong as they were right after the wall fell, and they likely won’t be again unless this group embraces technology. Aki and I cited examples of Mumbai and Iran to explain the values of it but the consensus is that it will fall on deaf ears.

Now please, do not interpret this as an endorsement of the actions of this movement or their beliefs, nor do I mean disrespect to their beliefs either. I am merely a guest here and these people are putting me up and treating me as one of their own. I believe that nearly any political movement has merits and from what I can tell, these are good people who want to life their lives free of political oppression and generally mind their own business, I cannot speak for all of their beliefs, only that I can say they feel very justified in them and truly believe themselves to be doing good to help society, as they see it. It’s sad to me to see their message and beliefs get lost or downed out because they refuse to adapt to modern technology.

An interesting side note, you’ll see that most of my photos from this trip do not contain people… weird seeing as I tend to focus on portraits quite often. This is because the men and women of “78″ refuse to be photographed and the ones who don’t know me react angrily to me walking about with my camera at all. While I respect and understand this concern it saddens me as many of them are amazing, beautiful, interesting people who should have their voices heard and choose to hide their face so that they can fight another day, a concern that I’m not entirely sure how realistic it is.

New photos are up, check them out…

Until tomorrow.

Today I put the wraps on a project that has been ongoing for about a year now. While the delays on both ends were frustrating I’m very proud to announce that I have completed my work on the new SinnermanEnsemble.org website.

For those unfamiliar with Sinnerman, they are an amazingly talented up and coming theater group here in Chicago. Their performances of The Incredibly Famous Willy Rivers and most recently their production of their original piece Sweet Confinement have both been met with huge success and critical acclaim.

I am proud to have worked with them and to finally be able to launch this site.

It’s worth noting that the group has plans to do some exciting things with social media that I don’t think any other theater companies have tapped into yet. Including a Twitter Account and a Flickr page.

Stay tuned to Sinnerman’s blog for more info. They have a new show planned for March with a working title of “Bible B-Sides” that will run from March 23rd 2009-April 25th 2009 at the Viaduct Theater. I wish them all the luck in the world.