Here’s something that should have happened, but did not.
I am so very sorry and frustrated about this.
The Saint.
Produced by Sir Roger Moore, featuring Moore himself and Ian Ogilvy.
With Adam Rayner as Simon Templar.
And Eliza Dushku (beautiful talented actress, I’d pay to watch her breathe1) as the Saint’s partner in crime.
But apparently the series is on indefinite hiatus – and it’s been since 2014.
Damn!
Poet, author and artist Clark Ashton Smith was born on the 13th of January 1893, in a place called Long Valley Caldera, California.
An appreciated poet with a strong surreal and arabesque vein, he started writing and publishing weird fiction on H.P. Lovecraft’s suggestion, because he wasn’t making a living as a poet. His fiction is generally much more colorfuil and a lot sexier than HPL’s, and his macabre stories often feature a wry sense of humor.
You can find a good selection of CAS’ works in a site devoted to the author, The Eldritch Dark. Continue reading
An then they say there’s nothing good in Trump’s election.
No, easy – I’m not going to talk politics.
Fact is, because of Donald Trump’s election I just discovered a TV series I did not know existed.
Because you see, it turns out that in a 1958 episode of the TV series Trackdown, a hustler and snake oil salesman called Trump, whose sinister plan involves the building of a wall to save good, god-fearing American citizens.
Now, in part because I’m currently on a Western roll, this Trackdown thing caught my attention – and when I found it features one of my favorite TV stars, actor Robert Culp, I had to learn more. Continue reading
I am a scientist. Maybe a defrocked, non-practicing scientist, but that’s my culture.
We have a method, we have an ethic, we serve Truth.
It’s hard work, but it’s also way cool – explore the mysteries of the universe and all that.
Science is something that informs my worldview – granted, I can suspend disbelief and read and enjoy (or write, and sell) a fantasy story, but at heart I have a certain set of rational routines and I will never be able to completely dis-install them.
And I’m getting increasingly nervous about the growing backlash against science I see around me.
You can’t correct someone’s wrong notion that you will be billed as an “arrogant know-it-all”.
And I wonder if fiction doesn’t have a part of responsibility.
One last purchase before the festivities, The Pulps by Jess Nevins has been an impulse buy – I was looking for something completely different, and Amazon’s evilothers also bought function revealed to me the existence of a Nevins book I knew nothing about.
The Pulps is a brief history of the pulps, written by a man that can be only described as a research powerhouse. Yes, I’m a fan: I have a few of his titles here on the shelf, and they are part of my go-to reference library on genre fiction, and quite a lot of fun to read (being informative AND fun is not a given, in many essays). Continue reading
OK, so I went and watched Rogue One (just like everybody else, I guess) and I quite enjoyed it. We went with my brother at the Lux Cinema in Nizza Monferrato, braving the fog and the cold, and came away quite happy with our decision.
It’s a pity the Italian dubbed version is pretty lame, but all in all a fun way to spend two hours.
And no, I won’t post spoilers1, I hope, and I will not make a series of comparisons and a hit list, to decide whether this is the best film in the franchise, the second best, the third best, or whatever.
I’ll just post a few considerations. Continue reading
Karavansara 