Persephøne esce su Delos Science Fiction

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Questa settimana segnalo l’uscita di un mio racconto di qualche tempo fa, titolato Persephøne, su uno dei Magazine di punta della Fantascienza italiana. Ospite infatti di Delos Science Fiction, questo racconto sperimentale e’ anche edito sul sito Fantascienza.com (link a seguire).

Persephøne racconta la storia di una stramba amicizia fra un ragazzo colto da crisi esistenziale e uno scienziato squilibrato, perennemente attacato ai monitor della sua navicella, dove si prende cura di una consorte virtuale alimentata dalle macchine.

Oltre ad avere una forte componente Sf e fantastica, lo stile del racconto adotta una “scrittura disruptiva”, dove la narrazione in italiano viene spesso interrotta da termini quasi-onomatopeici di origine straniera, atti a simboleggiare le forti interferenze fra realta e illusione, e con l’effetto di creare un sottile senso di disagio nel lettore.

Questo ne fa decisamente un racconto insolito e un po’ anticonvenzionale, almeno nel panorama dei racconti nostrani.

Per i curiosi, ecco il LINK, e buona lettura!

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Playing football in Wudaokou, Beijing, on a grey spring saturday

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Just getting my hands on my new YouTube channel, just started yesterday to get familiar with the system… please be patient as I aim to upload more video blogs in the upcoming months.

Meanwhile please subscribe if you enjoy the first vlogs. This one is a simple video about one fine Saturday morning, where I travel to the student town to Beijing to play football. The game ends up being a disappointment, but the overall atmoshpere of the campus is quite cheerful.

As I am going through a strange period of my life, I am curious to see where these new video posts might take me…

Bullet in the Head (1990)

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Suspended between Hong Kong and Vietnam locations, the bloody reverie of “Bullet in the Head” (1990) by John Wood really has it all – truly a must-see for Asian action movie lovers.

Take a cast of skilled and handsome Hong Kong actors (from Cantopop sensation Jackie Cheung to my personal favourite Tony Leung), turn them into three lousy scoundrels trying to make a living at the backdrop of HK protests of 1968.

Send them to Vietnam in the middle of the war, to become traffickers in Saigon’s backstreets affairs. Let them go mad, get their brotherhood twisted, as they become prisoners of Vietcongs. Let Cheung receive a bullet right into his brains right from Tony Leung, and see how the three drift apart.

Pack everything with bloody thrist for action, napalm and car chase sequences, like John Woo knows best. Enjoy during Chinese New Year. 

“Persephøne” di Alberto Vertighel

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Uno dei miei racconti degli ultimi mesi, Persphøne, e’ stato segnaato al prestigioso Premio Robot di quest’anno (per maggiori info http://www.fantascienza.com).

Sono alla ricerca di qualche editore interessato a valutarne la pubblicazione digitale in formato eBook. Sono particolarmente interessato a case editrici digitali, piu’ o meno underground/indipendenti, con una vocazione per narrativa di fantasia, alternative, fantascienza, etc. Sarei felice di condividere il manoscritto via email con eventuali interessati.

Potete contattarmi via posta elettronica: a.vertighel@outlook.com

Electronic Music (but good one) – SONOIO

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Did you know that one of the long-time collaborators of Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is an Italian keyboardist, and also a pretty good one…? I recently found out, so I made some investigation about this.

Alessandro Cortini, born in Bergamo in ’76, migrated to the US to pursue a career in music. Starting out on guitar at music school, he later developed an interst in synthesizers, modulators moogs, and synth music of the latest generation. He went on to master the genre, and was basically ‘hired’ by Trent Reznor to become an essential supporting member of Nine Inch Nails, from 2004 onwards. Alessandro then helped to streamline the new sound of the band, making it even more experimental and excessive. Known for their accurate studio recordings, Alessandro has been one of the key musician able to live-play most of NIN synthetic parts. 

This week I checked out some of Alessandro’s solo work, published under the pseudonym of SONOIO (“That’s me”), with two official relases + various other bands and side projects. Though not being a super fan of electronic music in general, I must say this have been a good soundtrack for me to start this grey December. Enjoy the video attached, and I hope you will feel like discovering more on this gifted artist. 

 

Dial M for Murder (1954)

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Let’s break away from those winter blues…

It’s cold outside, friends are all busy, Christmas about to arrive… then is there anything better to do in the weekend than re-discovering a classic Hitchcock movie?

“Dial M for Murder” – filmed in 1954 with Grace Kelly, one of Hitch’s masterpieces and a personal favourite. Here I post the trailer of this great classic for your chilly November nights – home alone! Do you really believe in “the perfect murder”?

The “City of Magic” / 魔都上海

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New York is the big apple, the city that never sleeps. Rome, the eternal city. Paris, the city of love. Las Vegas, sin city.

These are all well-known city nicknames from stunning metropolis from all over the world. Every city has its proper personality, after all. Well-well-well, Shanghai’s got also its own among local Chinese, as I found out. It’s “Modu” in Mandarin Chinese, literally meaning “Magic City”, though I must notice that… the “Mo” character also means evil! Is it maybe a coincidence? True or not, the name mostly refers to the glitter & glamour of Shanghai, a city where everything is possible, having become the modern outpost of the Chinese dream. Much more suitable than the western-centric “Paris of the East” nickname, believe me.

And… after this premise, here we have a video produced from a famous trademark of headphones. It’s shot nicely, and it well catches the beat of the “city of magic”. And let me add: If I can make it there / I’ll make it everywhere.