Chances are you drive a car everyday and have not ridden a bicycle in years. You may not even own a bike. You also probably find it very difficult to imagine what it is like to ride a bike in traffic. It is hard to get past the initial reaction of “Bicycle? In traffic!?!”

People all over the country mange to bicycle in traffic everyday and live to tell the tale. So how do they do it? The law affords cyclists equal right (and responsibility) to use the road as a vehicle, but that does not mean its safe. Unfortunately, roads are built to heavily favor automobiles. In the United States that means bicycles get the “protection” of a white painted stripe at the edge of the road. Are you imagining how safe you would feel riding along side traffic?

Moving to Portland, we had the goal of transitioning away from our car as our primary vehicle. We wanted to reorient our life in the community so that our everyday basic travel—to the grocery store, bookstore, restaurants as well as commuting to work— would happen on mass transit or bicycle. We have spent the last year looking for solutions to transporting cargo by bicycle. Their are some excellent options for cargo like groceries or even little people.

What we found were communities of normal people, not just Tour de France gearheads, but normal people who have chosen a lifestyle that leverages bicycles more than you may imagine possible. So with that in mind, as the summer months bring more seasonal cyclists out on to the street, please consider how you can better share the road with your neighbor who may just happen to be riding a bike and consider getting out on one yourself, even if just for a ride in the park.

And if you are a little curious about bicycles and road safety, watch this video about how protection for cyclists could be better incorporated into roadways to protect all street users.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet, director of City of Lost Children, Amélie and most recently The Very Long Engagement, is in pre-production on “Life of Pi” for possible release in 2009.

Of course, pre-production sometimes leads nowhere when creative personalities conflict, but Jeunet makes movies at a very slow but methodical pace, so I am confident that Piscine Patel, aka Pi, is on his way.

Jeunet’s directorial touch as a director has a strong visual style that I have enjoyed since Art school. He adds hyper-real color and exaggerations of perspective that help characters feel larger than life and full of playfulness. I am excited to see how his approach to film making will add to the strange happenings on Pi’s little boat.

If you have not read Life of Pi by Yann Martel, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It is a novel in the truest sense and bridges the gap between literature with depth and summer beach reading. Winner of the Man Booker Prize 2002, it is available in hardcover, two paperback editions and an illustrated version is coming this fall.

Here is Amazon’s summary if your interested:

… a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith.

The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India…. Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter.

After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker (”His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth”).

It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don’t burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker [the tiger] remain the boat’s sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination.

(Photo: Grufnik, Some rights reserved.)

A new three song EP has been released by Cold War Kids. Pick up Live from the Paradiso from the iTunes Store.

The EP includes live versions of “Saint John,” “Quiet, Please!” and a new track “A Change Is Gonna Come” featuring Elvis Perkins. “Quiet, Please!” was originally released in the 2005 Mulberry Street EP on the Monarchy Music label.

The fine young gentlemen will be back states-side this summer after finishing their international tour. Dates in California and some summer festival stops on the schedule, but no visits to Oregon yet. So sad. The next time I get to have subway sandwiches with Maust, I may not have any teeth left.

Last year, I encouraged many of you to go see An Inconvenient Truth, a documentary film about the issues behind our climate crisis (aka global warming). Hopefully some of you were persuaded and have since seen the film and — more importantly — meditated on the ideas, questions and responsibilities that relate to our daily life and professions.

I am writing you, fellow creatives, to invite you to take another step. A new website was launched today to help educate and mobilize the creative community:

Design Can Change

Whether you are a designer selecting materials & vendors, a creative director guiding a client’s decision making, web designer shaping digital distribution or a professional who uses design to achieve goals; please take the time to walk through the ideas discussed. We all have ways to contribute to positive change.

Please pass on this message (by e-mail or in person) to others within our community. Spread change.

Flow is completely imersive (no pun intended). Take the time figure out what is happening when you move, click, eat and what the red and blue rings mean. Here are the brief instructions.

Be aware of two drawbacks as you play.

1. You cannot pause the game. At least I couldn’t figure out how.

2. There seems to be a programming bug that makes your creature invisible (and unplayable). If you switch to another program mid-game (i.e. check your e-mail, or open a text document) you will end up having to start all over because your creature will disappear even though the game is still running.

I grew into a jellyfish before the bug messed me up, rub it in, in the comments, if you manage to grow into a gazelle or falcon or something that doesn’t swim.