Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai

Tag Archives: postaweek


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Phishers of Men

phishing_hThis morning I got a message from a pretty generic “services firm” handling the security for my email provider.
Due to some unspecified troubles, I was asked to send them my account details.
All of my account details.
Including my date and place of birth.
Including my password and the answer to my secret recovery question.

Only, they called it my “secernere” question.
“Secernere”, in italian, means “to secrete” – like in glands and stuff like that.
It was the most glaring in a variety of spelling and gramar errors.

Now, some phishers are so naive they ar almost cute.
But these guys were quite professional – had it not been for the bad Italian, I might have thought about… phoning the customer service of my email provider.

So I thought, why not?
And I replied to that mail. Like this

“Gentlemen,
your phishing attempt was one of the best I’ve seen so far, but your decision to use GoogleTranslate sank any hope you had of getting my personal data. The language is sluggish and wooden, and translating ‘secret’ with ‘secernere’ makes me wonder if your primary language is not, after all, French.
Just in case, should you need a professional translation, drop me a line – I’m sure we’ll be able to arrange some way for you to pay me.
Cheers!”

Who knows, maybe I’ll get me a job as a freelance translator for the mob.


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Keeping busy

It’s a busy season.
My research work is picking up speed again – while my University engagements force me to 36-hours/1000+ Kms trips week in, week out.
I’m learning to work on trains, which is something I was never good at before.

In the meantime, in the extracurricular department, I’m pleased to say I’m working on a scenario for a roleplaying game -something I hope I’ll see published late this year. My brother is also involved in a the project with a work of his own, on which I’ll act as revisor/editor.
The Mana Brothers ride again.

I’m also working on an instant book of sorts – a short’n’sweet non-fiction ebook that could be the first in a series should sales impress the publisher enough.
Let’s call it an experiment.

AND I’m working on two translations – one of which is due for tomorrow morning!

And finally, I shood rebooth my online course in Taoist Culture, which should have restarted last month, but I was forced to put on the afterburner due to bad health and other problems.

overworked-1The mystery remains – how comes I do so much work and still I struggle to make ends meet?
Which boils down to the basic problem with Italy where creative work is concerned – creative work is not considered “serious” work.
It is underpaid, or – if they can get away with it – it’s not paid at all.
I’ll have to make a post on this subject.

In top of all this, I keep reading books and writing stories.

Which explains, I guess, why the updates of Karavansara are so erratic of late.

But I’ll pick up speed again.


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Hail to the Queen

4902075237.02.LZZZZZZZA quick one, to raise three cheers to the novel Queen of K’n-Yan, by Japan’s foremost supernatural horror author and H.P. Lovecraft scholar, Ken Asamatsu.
The novel – published in the Kathleen Taji English translation by the fine guys at Kurodahan Press –  is finally available in ebook format, and it is highly recommended – a heady mix of science fiction, ancient mysteries and Lovecraftian Mythos, set in a finely detailed Japanese setting.
One of the best Lovecraftian horrors out there, subtly disquieting and deeply suggestive.
An ancient mummy, biogenetic experimentation, old military experiments, horror, madness and a dark shadow extending over humanity’s future.
Fast, furious, and scary in a very unusual way.
Great introduction by Darrell Schweitzer.
Stunning cover.
Highly recommended indeed.


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Stories from the deep future

echoesI’m having lots of fun reading Echoes of the Goddess, Tales of Terror and Wonder from the End of Time, a great collection of stories by Darrell Schweitzer, set in the same universe of the author’s popular and highly respected 1982 novel, The Shattered Goddess.

The eleven stories in the volume – which is available as an inexpensive ebook through Amazon – are set in a distant, decadent future, after a catastrophe of theological proportions (narrated in the novel mentioned above).
The setting and the mood recall Clark Ashton Smith’s Zothique and Jack Vance’s Dying Earth – the so called dying earth/end of times subgenre.

Now I am particularly interested in this subgenre, and I’m highly impressed by Schweitzer’s prose – the quality of the storytelling is such, that even a deceivingly light plot becomes multi-layered and highly satisfactory.
There is style and substance.
This is fantasy fiction, but a style of fantasy fiction and swords & sorcery that goes back to the roots of the genre, back to the pages of Weird Tales.
And yet, it is not just a nostalgia trip or a form of narrative archaeology.

The book was released by Wildside Press in february 2013, and is highly recommended.


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Dragon bones

And talking about China and fossils… 50 cents per kg is the price of dinosaur bones used as medicine in central China.

I was researching Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald, a German paleontologist that in the 1930s found a tooth belonging to a Gigantopithecus in an Hong Kong pharmacy, and I collected a few factoids about the practice of consuming “long gu” (“dragon bones”) for medical purposes – which is still is still going strong in China today.

Xu

The most common afflictions cured by boiling or grinding into powder the fossil bones are cramps and dizziness, but the list of possible applications is long and varied.

“… “dragon bones” are crushed to a fine powder, boiled, and mixed with other ingredients to make healing concoctions. According to an ancient Chinese medical text (dating back around 2000 years) pulverized fossils have been used to treat conditions ranging from diarrhea to epilepsy to “manic running about.” Some ancient “medical” conditions were mystical ailments. For example, dragon bone “mainly treats heart and abdominal demonic influx, spiritual miasma, and old ghosts.”

In 2007, the BBC revealed that one enterprising bone collector had found, dug out and sold about 8.000 kilos of old bones.
According to online sources, today, more than 100 tons of “dragon bones” are consumed each year in China and Southeast Asia.

All of which is great news not only for my Silk Road book (updates, updates!), but is also excellent fodder for stories.