Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Companions on the Road


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To Be like Buzz

A quick short post because… because.
I was reading an account of Buzz Aldrin’s latest adventure, his attempt at reaching the South Pole, and related medical consequences.

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You can find the piece here.

And a funny thing came up as I was discussing it with some friends.
Because you see, I grew up in the ’70s, with adventure books, National Geographic, and documentaries about Thor Heyerdahl, Jacques Cousteau and, yes, Buzz Aldrin.
I belong to the space age generation (for a very thin margin – I was born in ’67), and when I was a kid in school, I basically wanted to grow up and be like Buzz Aldrin.

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Now, I’ll be 50 in six months, and the weird bit is, I still want to grow up and be Buzz Aldrin.
Which to me is a sure sign I have chosen the right role model all those years ago.
Because he still is a role model.
Something I cannot say about, for instance, Zorro, or Tarzan.


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Sinbad, for real

the-sindbad-voyage-coverWe all have our passions, our quirky things that make us happy.
For me, among many other things, it’s used books, travel books, explorers and adventurers memoirs, books about the Orient, and the Arabian Nights.
So you can imagine how happy I am: this morning the postman delivered a package containing a very cheap, terribly battered but perfectly readable hardback copy of Tim Severin’s The Sinbad Voyage.
A single book that checks all the categories mentioned above, in a single package. Continue reading →


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The birthday of the ragman’s son: Kirk Douglas at 100

Today is the 100th birthday of actor Kirk Douglas.
With over 90 acting credits on IMDB, Douglas is one of my favorite actors of all time, and one whose films are part of my personal history. The guy’s been Spartacus, he’s been Van Gogh, he’s been Ulysses, Doc Holliday and Ned Land.

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So, not knowing how to celebrate the birthday of this icon, I decided to do a post about the five Kirk Douglas movies I like the most.
Nothing fancy – just a trailer and a paragraph with some personal notes.

Enjoy! Continue reading →


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Journey with the gods: Takizawa Bakin and the writer as masterless samurai

36c970b7c39c9cba362d798ccec4baf2A few days ago I was reading a short pamphlet by a friend, that reprised, among other things, this idea we have been playing with, of indie and freelance writers being ronin, masterless samurai.
The comparison is strikingly fitting: individuals with competence and skill, bound to a code of conduct (or at least a work ethic), despised, mocked and feared because they lack a master (or an agent, or a publisher), trying to make ends meet.
A self-sufficient adventurer, a loner fighting his own wars.

The problem with these men was that they were armed and out of work.
(Nakasendo Way)

Romantic?
Possibly. Continue reading →


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“Why did I start writing? The price of pork and beans made it necessary. I just got hungry enough, which is always a good thing for beginners. I was in New York and I knew Jeff Hanley, a red haired reporter on a paper there. I would pound out stuff on the typewriter and Jeff would come home, look my stuff over, say it was rotten, which it was, and make me go ahead doing more of it. Finally, under the stint of his irony I wrote a story and sold it to Frank Munsey.”
— Talbot Mundy.


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From the Bible to the Wild West: Sergio Toppi, a black and white gallery

Sometimes some pieces of the puzzle fall into place when you least expect it.
Yesterday I learned there is a new edition of the works of Sergio Toppi being produced.
Now, when I was a kid, Sergio Toppi was the guy that drew incredible comics, the guy whose name you did not know (as kids, we cared about characters, not authors) but whose style you couldn’t mistake.
Later, when I was in high school, I started paying attention to the artist’s name – and I became a fan of Sergio Toppi.
But at that point, my mother had already thrown away all those old useless comic books that were just gathering dust.

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But about the pieces falling in place… Continue reading →


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Joe Dever, 1956-2016

I just got the news of the death of Joe Dever, a legend in the gaming world, passed away this morning at the age of sixty.

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A former musician, Dever was the creator of the long and successful Lone Wolf series of choose your own adventure game books, that later evolved into novels, comics and a roleplaying game.
517c7raq9wl-_sy344_bo1204203200_His work is part of the culture and life story of many of us that play or create games.

I still remember the day I went to one of the best bookstores in Turin1, to order the first two Lone Wolf books I wanted to give my brother as gifts. It was, I think, 1986, and I had to explain what a choose your own adventure book was to the nice lady there. She was intrigued and delighted.

He was often a guest at the Lucca Comics and Games convention, and he will be sorely missed2

  1. Libreria Druetto, a wonderful bookstore, that’s been closed these last fifteen years at least, and replaced by a casual apparel chain-store. ↩
  2. This year is turning into one long funeral wake, and in all honesty I am a little tired of reporting deaths. And yet… ↩