Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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19 Ways to Become the MacGyver of History

Just the second experiment and already Portent has thrown me a curve ball.
“The MacGyver of History”?
But it’s OK, no really, I can do it, I can do it… MacGyver was a great series and I loved it as a kid, so I owe it to MacGyver.

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What is the MacGyver of History?
To me, he (or indeed, she) is one that can take bits and pieces of history, a paper clip and his trusted Swiss Army knife, and build a radio. Or a rocket.
In other words, we are talking about a writer of historical fiction and historical fantasy. Someone that is good enough to take history, and work in the interstices to create stories that work inside of history while being outside of it. Continue reading →


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How Adventures Changed How We Think About Death

selection_555Now this is a topic, right?
Blame the Portent Content Idea Geneator, that spat this one out when I put in the topic “Adventure”.
And it works, in a certain way.
Let me see if I can get this going – and incidentally, by “adventures” I will mean “adventure fiction”, be it novels, movies, comics or games.

Now, death is a fact.
We all know that we are sitting in this grand theatre and watching this movie, and one day when we least expect it the lights will go out forever, and we will never see how the movie ends.
6186And to be completely honest, that’s what peeves me the most – not seeing how the stories that I see unfurling in front of me will go after I’m gone.
I subscribe to Roger Zelazny’s idea of immortality – eternal life is an eternal sequence of unique moments and experiences, so don’t come and whine about how an eternal life would, in the end, be boring.
Not for me, sorry.
I’m currently going through the roughest time in my life, and I’m having lots of fun.
I’m sorry there’ are other people involved, and I get some very bad moods and I’m often anxious because I could end up living under a bridge in a few weeks, but God forgive me, it’s also exciting.

Which leads us to adventure fiction. Continue reading →


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Putting Portent Idea generator to the test

I just discovered the Portent Idea Generator, that is one of those things that are supposed to help bloggers do their thing, that is, write blog posts.

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Portent Idea generator is a web-based thingy in which you drop a word, the subject of your hypothetical post, and it generates a full post title.
Then you write that post, and people loves it.
Or something.

So here’s what I’m gonna do, what with today being Mardi Gras and all that: I will drop five words in the Portent Idea Generator and generate five titles, and then write five posts… and see what happens as I publish them once a day through this week.

The words are

  • Adventure
  • History
  • Fantasy
  • Orient
  • Old Movies (yes, I know, this is two words, don’t hate me)

We start in a few hours. Let’s see what happens.
And I admit I have half a mind of putting in also

  • Tits & Sand

as a sixth input.

And yes, the title is misleading – this will not put the thingy to the test – it will put to the test my writing chops. Which is good, because we must test our chops once in a while (not bad – sounds like a fake Lao Tsu or Bruce Lee quote).


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Making eyes at Patreon

patreon_iconI’ve been making eyes at Patreon.
Or it’s been making eyes at me.
Meaning I’ve been reading the Patreon documentation material, and it looks like a great thing to expand my work and provide new content to my followers, while making a buck and trying to pay my bills and have more time to create fiction, non-fiction and game-related contents.

For the uninitiated, Patreon is a subscription service for creatives: patrons pledge a fixed amount per month (say one to five bucks, or more), and get exclusive contents and special perks, while the creators get a modicum of steady cash flow. The sort of thing that could help me me improve and expand my blogging platform or my author activity, for instance. Continue reading →


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Sounds from another age

selection_554Back then long time ago when grass was green1, back when the internet was very different from what it is today, I started developing an interest for the first half of the 20th century – the gilded age, the roaring twenties, the sophisticated thirties.
I started watching movies, reading books and listening to music.
And back then I discovered a thing called Past Perfect – a record company specialising in remastering, through a complex resampling method, the original records of those ages past. The guys “simply” acquire as many good copies as possible of records from the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s, and then resample each track, using redundancy to repair damage to the tracks: the idea being that hardly two old records will be scratched in the same spot, and therefore, if you get enough copies, you can patch together a single clean, undamaged record.
And it works!
I was able to track them down through that early internet, and I ordered a few records – and these are still among my favourites.

And only a few days ago I found out that Past Perfect has now a YouTube channel, where you can listen to their collections, and then order them through various online shops.

Here’s one of their records, just to give you an idea – but check out their channel, and their online catalogue – you’ll find lots of great music, remastered from the original 78 RPMs

  1. Yes, today is also George Harrison’s birthday. ↩


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Reading “Radio Girls”

As I mentioned the other day, I am reading a good book, and good books are a (relatively) cheap gateway to escape dread and depression.
And to learn new things.
The novel I am reading is Radio Girls, by Sarah-Jane Stratford.

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Set between 1926 and 1930, Radio Girls is the story of Maisie Musgrave, a Canadian anglophile that is hired as a secretary for the newly created British Broadcasting Company (later Corporation), and becomes a witness in the early development of what is going to be called “talk radio”.
But hidden beneath the comedy and the mystery plot of the novel, is a well-researched story – the story of Hattie Matheson, the first director of the “talk” department of the BBC. Continue reading →


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On fedora hats

According to both my grandfathers,

A man without a hat is a man of no consequence

Both my grandfathers had two hats, one for workdays and one for Sundays and special occasions.
The everyday hat was a simple cap, what I’d call an eight panel or a newsboy, a standard working man’s hat that could be easily rolled up and put in a pocket. The hat for special occasions was a Borsalino. A fedora. Continue reading →