I was home alone for lunch, so I cooked myself a bowl of rice, and then I watched The Creature from the Black Lagoon, from 1954. Because it’s a movie I like, because it’s been a long time since last I watched it, and because in a couple of weeks I’ll have to record a podcast about it and I want to sound smart and say intelligent stuff.
And as I was quietly enjoying the show, something suddenly … ah!
Continue readingBrancalonia, the “spaghetti fantasy” roleplaying game has been a runaway success on Kickstarter – which means the writers and illustrators are hard at work on these hot summer days to get everything ready.
But meanwhile, back when the Kickstarter was still running full tilt, the History & Game Lab at Edinburgh University took an interest in us.
As a result, you can listen to an interview on the subject of games, history, the interplay of the real world and fantasy, and a lot of other things, on this podcast.
My voice is horrible, I am quite obviously clueless, but hey, you might find something interesting in my ramblings.
Ennio Morricone wrote the soundtrack for dozens of movies and basically provided musical accompaniment for the dreams of a lot of people out there.
He is gone now, but his music remains.
Music like this…
Today was another good day – I mailed a translation and a chunk of gaming-related material, and then I did some improvisational cooking to put together some lunch. As I was eating, I checked out the first two episodes of a series I did not know, called The Outpost.
Let’s pilfer the summary from Wikipedia:
The Outpost follows Talon (Jessica Green), the lone survivor of a race called ‘Blackbloods’. Years after her entire village is destroyed by a gang of brutal mercenaries, Talon travels to a lawless fortress on the edge of the civilized world, as she tracks the killers of her family. On her journey to this outpost, Talon discovers she possesses a mysterious supernatural power that she must learn to control in order to save herself, and defend the world against a fanatical religious dictator.
Oh, my…
Continue readingAnd so in the end I went and did a podcast, and it’s going fine – but it’s in Italian, and I’m afraid most of you couldn’t care less. But I’ll explain why it’s in Italian, while it’s been so successful, and all that.
Because I’ve got ideas, you see…
The podcast is called Paura & Delirio, and that’s how Fear & Loathing was translated in Italian when the movie based on Hunter S. Thompson’s book came out.
It’s basically two people – my friend Lucy and I – talking about old horror movies. No script, no planning, no nothing. We just pick a movie, or ask our listeners to pick one, we re-watch it, and then talk about it, while I drink some tea and Lucy smokes a fag.
The first transmission from Radio Karavansara got some positive feedback, so why not try again? What about a broadcast about one of my favorite obsessions?
Shanghai, the Paris of the East – a city that has fascinated me for ages, sneaking into my stories when least I expected it… and here’s a selection of tunes about shanghai, or from Shanghai, or somehow related to Old Shanghai.
Enjoy!
I’ve given myself four episodes to try and see if this thing catches on.
Up next… ah, maybe something about Central Asia and the Transiberian railroad?
Please leave your comments below…
A lot of online reviewers were less than kind with Black Lagoon‘s second season – called The Second Barrage. Most lamented the absence of Dutch and Benny from many episodes, the excessive focus on Rock and Revy’s “relationship”, and the less frantic action. So I was rather curious to see what it would look like.
And to me it looks… quite interesting.
To recap, Black Lagoon is an early 2000s anime/manga series set in the ’90s, and focusing on the day-to-day lives of a team of mercenaries, the Black Lagoon Trading Co., operating in the South China Sea. The first season follows four successive narrative arcs, throwing in a lot of firepower and an ample cast of supporting characters – including an organization of gun-running nuns, a Triad’s boss that is obviously Chow Yun Fat from A better tomorrow II, and a formidable unit of former Soviet special forces, known as Hotel Moscow, now working for the Russian Mafia.
Continue reading
Karavansara 