Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Category Archives: Other


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Predictable

… and no, I’m not gonna talk about the old single by The Kinks.

predictabilityFact is, I’ve just witnessed one of the most amazing tricks I ever saw.
A friend of mine – who’s very wise in the ways of the web – basically summarized the main points in a blog post, without reading the post itself.
He already knew in detail what the post was all about, how it was written – he even predicted a few phrases exactly.
Pure intellectual sleight of hand.
It’s all about structure, he explained.

Which is something that strikes me at various levels – because I’m very fond of structure when writing, because I am a blogger, and because I’m very fond of sleight of hand and stage magic.
And to me, someone that reads a blog post without actually reading it, knowing the full contents just by the title, is performing a mentalist trick worth of a fine stage magician. Continue reading →


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Music, not noise

It happened yesterday: a guy saw the light, understood that internet is taking up too much of his life, is too much of a distraction, and he wrote a post about it on his blog.
Then he shared it on Facebook, G+ and a few other social networks.
Basically he spent two hours on the web to tell the web he’s spending too much time on the web.

And yet, I understand the need to filter the noise.
Because the web is a precious tool – for working, playing having a good time or looking at the world.
But the noise is overwhelming.

So, my plan for this august is – turn off the PC for two hours every day, and go through my old CD collection.
Be it classical, jazz, pop, rock, eastern or western, I don’t care.
Music, not noise.

And I’ll start straight away.
Let’s see… Live, by Fleetwood Mac.

After all, my musical life begins with this record.

Fleetwood_Mac_Live_cov-500x500

Seeya later!

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WordPress posts on G+ – here’s how we did it!

google+OK, the usual disclaimer – one man’s computer-based catastrophe is another man’s idea of fun.
So maybe it was just Marina (alias Zeros83) and me, experiencing this frustrating problem with the Google+ thingie in WordPress.
Maybe this did never happen to you, or you solved it in a sec without even thinking about it. Please be patient with what we consider a little triumph, even if for you it’s just two losers congratulating themselves on their loser-dom.

Our problem: basically, the social sharing tool in WordPress did share our contents on G+ – but only privately, and for our eyes only.
And, sort of, you know… I normally have already read what I wrote on my blog.
Social sharing should be… social.

So we worked a little to see if we could find a way around this strange setting problem.

And this is how we did it. Continue reading →


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You work with your brain, you should starve

CareFeedingAuthorAmazon-MobileA few days back, writer John Connolly tweeted the following…

Something has gone very wrong if we’ll pay $5 for a greeting card, $3 for gift wrap, but resent paying more than $2.99 for a book.

I just wanted to share it here on Karavansara.
I see the problem not so much with the price of books, but with the value that is given to creative work – any kind of creative work.
When the product of your workday is not material – when you have a story or a theory and not a chunk of stuff – paying you is considered a strange eccentricity.
After all, you could find yourself an honest job, and then do your creative thingies in your spare time, right?
And there’s no viable solution in sight.

Yes, it’s that depressing.

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The Mysterious West

moon-elis-foldThis is a request post.
The first in a series of request posts – or better still, the start of a side-project which started as a request post.
Complicated…

I was talking, a few days back, with my friend Claire, and we hit on the idea of the Mysterious West, or, if you prefer, the West as seen through the eyes of Eastern Fantasy.
We were discussing the fascination the Japanese seem to have for European historical settings and melodrama – from the middle ages to the very early 20th century, references are quite frequent, in anime, manga, narrative.
Our chat started because of Takarazuka, really.

So, Claire said, why not explore this idea, this concept of the Mysterious West? Continue reading →


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NOT the Prisoner of Zenda

MadKingCoverHCSo there’s this story about a guy going on vacation in a Middle-European country and soon turns out he’s a dead ringer for the local ruler.
Complications ensue – our hero falls in love with a local princess, is caught up in the local political intrigues, that sort of stuff.

We’ve been there, right?
Ruritanian romance, or Ruritanian fantasy, they call this sort of thing.
Anthony Hope – The Prisoner of Zenda.
Only, this is not the Prisoner of Zenda.

This is The Mad King.

Continue reading →