Fresh from the printers, the final issue of Sensis, a magazine for the visually impaired. 150 Years ago blind people were not able to do any interesting job. Fortunately these days blind people can do almost anything they want, from running a marathon to space research (with special computers).

A secret project, still…

Soul King Solomon Burke performs tonight at Paradiso in Amsterdam and yes I go! Solomon, the resonator fully inhabits what he sings: ’If you need somebody to love you baby, well here I am baby, come and I give all that I got for you, baby’ > he is the father of 21 children ;)

In Holland we have a political party called Party for the Animals. Director Marianne Thieme announced that if people eat less meat – exactly 3 meatless days a week  - the climate problems are almost solved, because it has the same effect as when 3 million cars are removed from the Dutch roads. Our future King Willem Alexander supported these thoughts at the UN Global Sustainability Conference in New York. Right there the Party for the Animals gave a preview of their documentary Meat the Truth: CO2-emissions by meatfarms in Western countries like The Netherlands, are higher than the emissions of all cars, trains, boats and planes together. Art Wim Delvoye.

Female student Jinyoung Jo at the Hong-ik University in South Korea, designed this streamlined Chanel Fiole conceptcar. Unfortunately it is only form, without a futuristic motor. I prefer the Roll Royce way of designing: first the motor and the shape follows logically.

This week 27 Year old racer Danica Patrick crashed a traditional male-dominated party with a third place at the 2009 Indy 500. Her topspeed was 222 miles/hour (357 km/uur). The race takes 3h20 with 200 laps. Danica had come to Indianapolis with a good feeling based on a fortune cookie that said a four-wheel adventure would bring her happiness. Who has four-wheel adventures?

Fantastic thunderstorms illuminated the night!

Recently Steven Heller published a book about Design Disasters. In the book is a nice article by Richard Saul Wurman (who was my first employer) in New York City. In 1984 he founded the TED conferences (Technology, Entertainment and Design). TED failed. In 1990 Richard tried it again and the world was ready for it: the most interesting people on earth communicate what they are passionate about. Like Alisa Miller, the CEO of Public Radio International, talking here about ‘how the news shapes the way we (= Americans) see the world’.

This is an attempt to describe The Motor…these words still do not fit, too corporate. How do you tell that you absolutely love your work, that you want to surprise yourself as well as the client, that you know how to communicate thoughts with a visual vocabulary?

Wonderful new murals by Blublu, the shark he just finished in Barcelona, the mural on the right is in Berlin.