pulp history | Karavansara

2 January 2016
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Six Objects from the Turin Egyptian Museum

As I mentioned a while back, I was part of a MOOC hosted by the Manchester University, about Ancient Egypt as perceived through six objects in the collections of the Manchester Museum.

egypt2

As part of the course, I had to submit a short paper covering my choice of six objects, chosen to explore a certain facet of the Ancient Egyptian history or culture.

I chose six papyruses from the collections of the Turin Egyptian Museum – or Museo Egizio di Torino, in Italian – that show a different face of Ancient Egypt… and feature magic, murder, mayhem and naked women.

cropped-jewelry

Now that the course is over and my paper has been evaluated, I thought someone out there might be interested …

so here it goes

It’s a very simple, lightweight pdf document, eleven pages of loose text with some extra links for images¹. You can read it online, or download it – it is distributed under a standard Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike license.

I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Comments are very welcome.
Cheers!

but who knows – one of these nights I might try and expand it a little and do a DeLuxe version… ↩

29 December 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

It’s my party…

Today, the Catholic Church remembers King David.
Yes, that David – the most sword & sandal character of the Old Testament¹

david-and-goliath-23

And yes, I’m going to have a party.

with the possible exception of Samson. ↩

12 November 2015
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Dieselpunk is Pulp Misspelled

So, today is the International Dieselpunk Day.
Now, I love most of what’s been produced under the label of dieselpunk – possibly more than the catalog of the genre’s older brothers, cyberpunk and steampunk.
The reason is, to me, dieselpunk is just pulp misspelled… I even built a Pinboard on Pinterest, on the subject…

Also, because being less codified and clean-cut than standard steampunk, dieselpunk is, at the moment, freer and more open to creative approaches.
So, what am I going to do for the International Dieselpunk Day?
Well, I think I’m going to ramble a bit, taking a stroll through what I think about when I think dieselpunk…
Continue reading →

6 November 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Teach Yourself Sabotage with OSS

Among the wonders one finds online, the Simple Sabotage Field Guide is an absolute must have in the pulp hero library (and in a writer’s box of resources).

The book is a 1944 field guide distributed by OSS – the precursor of CIA.
The pdf version of this small booklet can be found here.

As the clearance stamp notes “Use this information as you see fit”.

24 September 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Pulp History – the Changeling Princess

As usual, history can be much wilder than pulp fiction.
Thinking of the Mysterious East, we often read stories of dragon ladies, of dangerous women and mysterious seductresses.
So, in the name of pulp history, consider, if you will, Yoshiko Kawashima, aka Jewel of the East or Eastern Jade.

For starters, her name was not Yoshiko Kawashima, but Aisin Gioro Xianyu, and she was a princess of Manchu origin – her father a lesser character in the Imperial Court at Beijing.
But when she was eight years old, her family sold her to a Japanese called Kawashima. She was, after all, just the fourteenth daughter.
Kawashima-san was an adventurer and a spy – and he thought that breeding a Chinese princess to become a tool of the Japanese empire might be a neat trick.
The girl’s life with Kawashima became an experiment in the thorough bending of a human mind.
It was probably more successful than Kawashima himself dreamed.
Continue reading →

31 August 2015
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Pulp History – the legend of the False Lama

English: Ja Lama (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

They called him the Avenging Lama or the False Lama, and said he had no navel.

A number of weird characters – adventurers, maverick scientists, bona fide gods – ran footloose in that area comprised between China, Russia, Tibet and Mongolia, in the final years of 19th century and in the early 20th. Their lives and adventurea have long been one of my interests.

Among the gods – or at least demi-gods – Ja Lama is one of the least famous, and most colorful. Continue reading →

19 August 2015
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

That time Gandhi wrote to Hitler

I got this photo through the Ancient Explorers group¹. In July 1939, Gandhi wrote a letter to Adolf Hitler. Basically, telling him not to be a dick – but in a classier way.