"All this he saw, for one moment breathless and intense, vivid on the morning sky; and still, as he looked, he lived; and still, as he lived, he wondered."

― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

Incoming #FolktaleWeek!

November 13, 2022

Tomorrow is the start of #FolktaleWeek, a yearly initiative that gives a set of prompts to artists of all kinds. Their Twitter account is here, and their Instagram account (where they’re most active) is here.

The prompts for this year are as follows:

Monday, 14th: Fool;
Tuesday, 15th: Tree;
Wednesday, 16th: Star;
Thursday, 17th: Rebel;
Friday, 18th: Costume;
Saturday, 19th: Potion;
Sunday, 20th: Victory.

The idea is to celebrate our favourite folktales, legends and fairy tales through works of any kind of art, and I have never participated before because I wasn’t sure I could consider myself an artist, and this year I said: “To Hell with that”.

So here I am: on my Patreon, I’ll publish a themed article each day, with an original picture.

Disclaimer: I used to be able to draw, but I am not an illustrator. I’m a storyteller. The pictures you will see, including the one in this post, are generated from word prompts through the Nightcafe AI art generator. Now, I know that this kind of tool makes lots of people uncomfortable. As I said, I’m not an illustrator, but I am an expert in technological innovation and in the impact of technology on business and society. I know how artificial intelligence works and I used to teach this kind of stuff. So, if you wish to engage me on the topic, be my guest.

For everybody else, I’ll see you throughout the week. All the posts will be free-to-read.

movies and tv

The Lychee Road

On the plane to Taiwan, the entertainment selection was limited but this caught my eye: it’s a 2025 movie, labelled as historical comedy, in which a Tang Dynasty minor official is framed by his colleagues into performing an impossible task: delivering fresh lychees from a

April 19, 2026 9:00 am

architecture, engineering and construction

Fuorisalone 2026

I am not ready. I am so not ready. I feel like I just got back from Taiwan (which I did), Rome in between, and now I must prepare to depart for Denmark and I am so not ready for the Design Week. Still, the

April 18, 2026 5:04 pm

books and literature

Project Hail Mary

I really wanted to like this book, having liked The Martian and… well, we don’t talk about Project Artemis. I enjoyed the movie just fine, and I hoped the book would fix some oversimplifications and convenient occurrences depicted there. Also, the main character is a

April 17, 2026 8:00 am