Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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The Perils of Pauline: Trial by Fire

The Perils of Pauline, as I mentioned in a previous post, is a seminal movie cliffhanger serial from 1914, directed by Louis J. Gasnier and Donald MacKenzie, and starring Pearl White, Crane Wilbur and Paul Panzer.

Only 9 episodes of the original run of 20 survive today1, and here’s the first – Trial by Fire.
The quality is not very high and I personally find the soundtrack unnerving, but what to say… Enjoy!

In 2008 The Perils of Pauline was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry, as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

  1. the nine-parts version is actually a recut of the original 20-episodes ↩


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A rook gun and a Winchester

The issue of the guns carried by Peter Fleming on his journey caused an amusing exchange on The Times when Fleming and Maillart came back from Asia. The object of the scandal was the following passage – printed in The Times on the 18th of November 1935 and later included in New from Tartary.

Our armament consisted of one .44 Winchester rifle, with 300 rounds of pre-War ammunition of a poorish vintage, which was not worth firing; and a second-hand .22 rook rifle, which surpassed itself by keeping us in meat throughout the three months during which there was anything to shoot.

44 winchester

a .44 Winchester

Some readers were shocked at the idea of a Westerner facing the dangers of the Silk Road with such inadequate armaments1.
Some promptly wrote to The Times expounding their opinions.
One letter in particular is worth reprinting, together with Peter Fleming’s response to it. Continue reading →


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Arabian NIghts Art 2: Blind Baba Abdalla

arabian nights italy 1958 2Last week I posted a gallery of images from the first of the three Arabian Nights tales, taken from the 1958 Fratelli Fabbri volume.
The experiment was quite successful, so here we go with the second tale – billed as The Blind Sheik, but commonly referred to as The Tale of Blind Baba Abdalla.
It is interesting to note that the stories in this 54 booklet are not adaptations but, apparently, straight translations of the original text.

If you like, you can read the original story from the Sacred Texts website – in the Andrew Lang, 1898 translation.

Once again, the illustrations are by Benvenuti.

Next week, the third and last story, and gallery.


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Back in the game?

Two firsts, tonight.
First first, after a long delay and lots of experiments and failed attempts, I’m running my first online gaming session – using Google Hangouts and my shaky connection.

This is very important to me – ever since I moved in this God-forgotten village in the hills of dreary Astigianistan, my regular gaming schedule has been disrupted and, later, canceled.

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One can’t drive 80 km to play three hours, and then drive 80 km back once a week.
Apart from the stress and the fatigue – and the short gaming time – the costs in terms of fuel are insane1.

So, will my connection hold and allow me to game online with my friends in Turin?
I really hope so2. Continue reading →