Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


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The Fifth Indiana Jones Movie

So, the big news seems to be there will be a new Indiana Jones movie, the fifth1.
And this is big news because apparently we will get Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, and Steven Spielberg at the helm.
Now, a lot of the fans I heard are damn sure this movie will suck.

It will be worse than that Crystal Skulls thing!

… they say.

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But I’m not sure.
There are ways to make a good, solid, entertaining action fantasy pulp movie featuring a 73 years old man as the main character.
Granted, it needs some work.
But if you would please follow this link, Mr Spielberg –> Continue reading →


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Eight Video-Blogs

vlogsIn the last year I started following regularly a certain number of video-blogs on Youtube – and I’ll keep following them in 2016.

So I thought I’ll share my faves – considering that they might interest you out there, as some of the topics are the same covered – or marginally touched-upon – in Karavansara.

I’ll spare you the technical and professional vlogs and the obvious (TED Talks, Harlan Ellison etc., and more in general, instructional vlogs.)
So here they are, in no particular order… Continue reading →


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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.

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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.

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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!

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


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Other People’s Pulps: The Adventures of the Seaspray

I’ll start the year with a chunk of personal nostalgia.

I mentioned already – ad nauseam – how my generation was brought up with a steady, solid, high quality diet of adventure… often, real life adventure.
I grew up with documentaries about the Apollo missions, about Thor Heyerdahl, about deep sea divers and explorers.
There was a lot of South Seas in my youth – mostly through the Folco Quilici documentaries, but also thanks to a TV series that hit the Italian screens in the early ’70s – when I was about six or seven years old.

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It was an Australian serial, and it was called The Adventures of the Seaspray – but in Italy was presented as “A Sud dei Tropici” (South of the Tropics). Continue reading →


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Waiting for 2016 in the 1930s

Last day of 2015.
I’ve been planning the family dinner and some entertainment.
The local offering, both in terms of live entertainment, cinema or TV programming is bleak bordering on ghastly.
I could go for some music – my old tradition of listening a musical or operetta of some kind on new year’s eve.
51vp643XS-LAnd indeed, I had planned to listen to South Pacific this year – but apparently my copy (the José Carreras–Kiri Te Kanawa version) was misplaced or, more likely, never returned after borrowing.
And the neighbors get nervous if I listen music at a high volume anyway – their dog starts barking.
Do I really want to spend my New Year’s Eve wearing headphones?

So I decided for a Marlene Dietrich double bill – first Morocco, from 1930, and then The Scarlet Empress, from 1934 (the Criterion edition, with a lots of extra features).
Both directed by Joseph von Sternberg.
So yes, while 2016 arrives, I’ll be in the 1930s, in the company of Marlene Dietrich.

Marlene-Dietrich-in-Morocco-1930-2

Better than the ghastly New Year’s Eve the state television has to offer – ghastly, and paid with my tax money.
Ah!

See you on the other side, ladies and gentlemen.
And have a happy new year – no matter in what decade you decide to start it.