I keep posting bad news, probably because as I grow old, the heroes of my youth grow older, and pass away. Such is the case of Rowena Morrill, the brilliant artist whose wonderful art do often graced the covers of the paperbacks on which I learned to love fantasy and science fiction.
I believe the best way to remember an artist is by admiring her art, so here’s a small gallery of some of my favorite Rowena art. Click to enlarge.
The new year has decided to go off with a bang, and it took away two beloved actresses in a matter of a few hours.
British actress Barbara Shelley was probably the classiest of the Hammer ladies – she appeared in Dracula, Prince of Darkness, in The Gorgon, and in Rasputin the Mad Monk. Her presence was so iconic, that many believe to this day that one of her earlier films, Blood of the Vampire, was a Hammer, while it wasn’t.
She was also a star in The Village of the Damned and in the classic Quatermass and the Pit. She also did an awful lot of television, including shows like The Avengers.
Tanya Roberts was an American actress very popular with my age group in the 80s, when she was in Charlie’s Angels before becoming a Bond Girl in A View to a Kill, and a Playmate; she later starred as the Queen of the Jungle herself in Sheena. She also appeared in the fantasy B-movie classic Beastmaster.
Roberts was only 65 at the time of her passing.
Yesterday was a long day – I had to go into town to see the people that do my taxes, and as I was at it, I dropped by the local bookstore, where my friend Roberto had my copy of Fritz Leiber’s massive collection Sword & Sorcery waiting for me. Then I did some shopping (it being market day and all that), and then had lunch with my friends, enjoying the company.
When I got home, I found a request for an urgent article from a magazine I work with – I am taking a break from writing it as I am writing this – and then I got a weird personal message through Facebook, from a dear friend that lives in the middle of the Atlantic (on an island, of course – I have no contacts in Atlantis).
The message was more or less..
My mother saw you died, it’s in the newspapers, and she called me… Are you fine?
“Davide Mana” is not a common name, but is not as unique as I’d love to think – there was another Davide Mana, living here in Piedmont, a man of forty-six, a professional man very active in his community. He died early this week, and the local news covered the fact.
And a few people saw the name, and the area, and got worried.
My friend’s MP was the first of a series.
But no, it’s OK – I’m a little tired and a bit worn around the edges, but I’m fine.
But my thoughts go to the family of that man I never met, but shared a name with. A father of four, much loved in his community, and from what I could read in the news, a good man. And I’m very sad.
I have just learned of the passing away of Honor Blackman, that was Cathy Gale in The Avengers, and later went on to star in a movie in another popular espionage franchise.
She was 94.
Yet another piece of my past that vanishes.
Two nights ago I read in a single sitting a book that’s been on my to-read list for over 20 years, and that for various reasons I always left behind when going to the bookstore. It is called Il Cammello Battriano (The Bactrian Camel), and was written by Italian journalist Stefano Malatesta.
It is the chronicle of a fascination for the Silk Road, and of a trip along the road in the company of old books by and about explorers and adventurers and what not. I guess you can see why I liked it.
It is a very thin book (160 pages) which explains why it became a bestseller – and by this I do not mean to shortcharge mister Malatesta, who is a fine writer that spins an excellent yarn, but for a fact the Italian Top Ten book list used to host books under the 200-pages (names like Baricco or Tamaro come to mind).
Continue readingA Gentle Philosophy (or A Kind Philosophy, or A Soft Philosophy, depending on the translation) is the title of a song I like a lot (maybe I’ll put the video below), and is something I thought about after my last post in which I mentioned the philosopher talking of “an alleged emergency” and basically treating the current state of affairs of our species as just another thought experiment.
Through a series of different connections, thinking about philosophy, I came to the usual – my own philosophical gurus, and their teachings. Because we are creatures of science and philosophy, and there’s always something to learn from the classics.
Continue readingI will openly admit that I have always found Dirk Pitt insufferable but, in a nice symmetry, I have always liked Clive Cussler – probably since the day I found out he had found an agent and sold his first novels by faking an agent’s stationery and setting up a simple but effective confidence game.
Clive Cussler was a man that wrote book about sea adventure, and used the proceeds to have real-life sea adventures – and to collect classic cars. He projected a certain joy de vivre that made me like him even when I staggered to finish Valhalla on the third attempt.
And later I found out I liked his other series much better – and I absolutely loved his memoirs about tresure hunting and relic salvaging.
Clive Cussler is gone, but he entertained us for decades, and his legacy will certainly live on.
Karavansara 