2025

There are countless unicycle competitions worldwide every year, both regional and national, even intercontinental. Every two years there is a world championship. In 2026, it will be held in Austria, and the organizers expect between 2,500 and 3,500 participants. These are fanatical multicultural events.

The day everything changed is a graphic novel-style anthology that tells 10 personal histories of October 7 2023. The stories focus on hope and resilience, it’s not about despair or hate. It’s about finding light in the darkest of times. The book truly illustrates the power of an optimistic spirit.

A novel by Edward Burns about Irish Catholic migrants. The first of a trilogy.

It’s the titel of a play by Ksenia Marasanova, directed by Paul Dekker. In Dutch: “Zij zagen Oorlog“. I produce the show and helped with some texts. War Up Close shows war from all angles, through the eyes of people that are about to make a choice and have to live with the consequences.

Short story Early on a September morning, Lior cuts through Volkspark Friedrichshain on his way to Ding Dong Ping Pong. The air carries the scent of rain on stone, and faintly, children’s laughter drifts between the trees. Sunlight brushes lightly over leaves and flowers, promising another warm day.

Great travel book by Wilfred Thesiger covering desert-cultures and the Bedu way of life. It’s about friendship, history and how global developments destroyed a centuries old culture.

For over an hour Benjamin Herman and the Robin Nolan Trio played their hearts out at the Jazz Festival. Afterwards, they presented their new album. You could have a chat with them. And take your picture with them, if you wanted.

From the department of classic jokes The Soviet nation decides to get rid of him once and for all, and wants to bury him as far away as possible. They set up a special commission tasked with finding a suitable location.

An introduction to Taoism by Benjamin Hoff.

I don’t have that much experience with sports-photography, as theater and festivals are the arenas I’m used to. Through the years I made a lot of photos of my daughter Sofia and her unicycle of course, but never covered a whole event a lot of athletes, all with different techniques and timing.

The fairytale forest villages usually have no more than a few hundred permanent residents. Some even less than hundred. In the summer, that number grows by several thousand. Between May and November the city-dwellers escape the hustle and bustle and seek out their picturesque country homes.

Yes, that actually is one of my book drawers. I have a few of them. And stacks with books. And chests with books. And a lot of e-books and audio books. I read a lot, on average some two books a week. I will keep a list with books that touched me.

“Uzbekistan? But that’s not very close, is it?” I hear myself asking the question, while I try to pinpoint the country on the world map that I envision in my head. So there is Armenia, then we have the Caspian Sea followed by Kazakhstan with a bunch of countries to the south and east.

Yes, but differently. In one way or the other, I ran an active blog between 1994 and 2018-ish. It was a mix of articles (in Dutch and English) on things that triggered me: equality, history, philosophy, plays, books, politics, some hardware, education, jokes and activities around my companies. That blog is still there, but private.