Armchair adventuring | Karavansara

3 January 2016
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Eight Video-Blogs

vlogs In the last year I started following regularly a certain number of video-blogs on Youtube – and I’ll keep following them in 2016.

So I thought I’ll share my faves – considering that they might interest you out there, as some of the topics are the same covered – or marginally touched-upon – in Karavansara.

I’ll spare you the technical and professional vlogs and the obvious (TED Talks, Harlan Ellison etc., and more in general, instructional vlogs.)
So here they are, in no particular order… Continue reading →

1 January 2016
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Other People’s Pulps: The Adventures of the Seaspray

I’ll start the year with a chunk of personal nostalgia.

I mentioned already – ad nauseam – how my generation was brought up with a steady, solid, high quality diet of adventure… often, real life adventure.
I grew up with documentaries about the Apollo missions, about Thor Heyerdahl, about deep sea divers and explorers.
There was a lot of South Seas in my youth – mostly through the Folco Quilici documentaries, but also thanks to a TV series that hit the Italian screens in the early ’70s – when I was about six or seven years old.

13406

It was an Australian serial, and it was called The Adventures of the Seaspray – but in Italy was presented as “A Sud dei Tropici” (South of the Tropics). Continue reading →

28 December 2015
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Other People’s Pulps: Chandu the Magician (1932)

While I’m still trying to decide what I will watch for New Year’s Eve, I spent about an hour and a half having lots of fun with Chandu the Magician, a 1932 film directed by William Cameron Menzies and Marcel Varnel.
Maybe not exactly a Christmas movie, but quite a treat¹.

chandu-the-magician-movie-poster-1932-1020199670

Continue reading →

16 December 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Young adult adventures

A story set in the ’30s, featuring airplanes, Japanese spies and no end of intrigue and adventure?
Of course I had to get me a copy.

I chanced upon Jamie Dodson’s Flying Boats & Spies while looking for something completely different – I found the author’s website while doing a web search on tramp freighters.
Looking for a ship, I discovered a wealth of air adventures.

As the world edges closer to war a mighty flying boat is readied for her first flight, and America’s enemies will do anything to see it fail. A plucky young pilot is given a mission that takes him to tropical islands and first love, and into the sights of murderous assassins; he, and America, will need courage to survive.

And no kidding… Continue reading →

13 December 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

The Wold Newton Event, December 13th 1795

Today is the 220th anniversary of the Wold Newton Event.
Around 3 o’clock, on the 13th of December 1795, a meteorite fell near Wold Cottage, not far from the village of Wold Newton, Yorkshire.

Here
On this Spot, Dec 13th, 1795
fell from the Atmosphere
AN EXTRAORDINARY STONE
In Breadth 28 inches
In Length 30 inches
and
Whose Weight was 56 Pounds
THIS COLUMN
In Memory of it
was erected by
EDWARD TOPHAM
1799

The site of the impact was owned by Major Edward Topham, who had a monument erected to signal the spot, and organized exhibitions of the rock in London.

monument

The Wold Newton meteorite (an L6 ordinary chondrite) is currently on display in the Natural History Museum.

But there’s a second part to the story, of course. Continue reading →

2 December 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Adventure by Proxy

I’ll write down a few sparse ruminations, if you don’t mind.
This post is tagged Armchair Adventuring, and this post is at the core if that tag.

You see, I just stumbled on a piece by a guy that recently discovered the joys of white-water rafting.
You know, that sport that consists in paddling down rapids in a big inflatable dinghy.
The guy I was reading really loves that stuff.

He’s pretty sure this is his sport.
He’d spend hours watching videos of people rafting.
Yes, he’s considering it a spectator sport.
Give thanks to the inventor of the GoPro camera.

The thing got me thinking along two very different lines. Continue reading →

28 November 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Other People’s Pulps: The Taking of Tiger Mountain (2014)

OK, I said I’d do a few posts about Tsui Hark‘s The Taking of Tiger Mountain – so here’s the film review, or an attempt at it.
Let’s start with the plot.
As mentioned in a previous post, The Taking of Tiger Mountain is based on true events: in the winter of 1946, in North-Eastern China, a unit of the Chinese People Liberation Army tackled a local warlord and his army of bandits.

Then, a novel, an opera, a movie – and in 2014, The Taking of Tiger Mountain.

te-takingtigermountain

Tsui Hark’s take on this classic of historical adventure turned Cultural Revolution mainstay is framed as a movie-within-a-movie: in the prologue, Jimmi – a young hotshot Chinese programmer on his way to Silicon Valley – catches a glimpse of the 1970 version of the movie, and decides to re-watch it.
What we see, therefore, is the 1970s movie through the eyes of a post-Communist young man¹.
Ergo, the somewhat stiff and overstated 1970 film turns on the screen into a Spielbergesque high adventure entertainment. Continue reading →