Chiara C. Rizzarda's Blog, page 48

#Spooktober 21 – Thorvald Niss

Thorvald Niss was a Danish XIX Century painter, and he’s mostly known for his landscapes but, as is the case for many of the artists we’re featuring this Spooktober, there’s more to him than meets the eye. Today on my Patreon we take a look at one painting that stands amongst the others.

Egyptian Schedule – Day 2

Provided I was able to enter the Country, on day 2 I should wake up in Cairo. Our schedule today features three main points:

the Egyptian Museum;the Citadel;the Bazaar.

Let’s see what it means.

1. The Egyptian Museum

I’m assuming they mean the pink one, the one near the 6th October Bridge, designed by Marcel Dourgnon in 1902.
If this is the case, there’s a couple of people I need to meet.

The first one is Hatshepsut, Royal Wife of Pharaoh Thutmose II until he died and she decided she was going to be the fifth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty herself because if you want something done you might as well do it yourself. To clear everyone’s doubt and since there was no such thing as a Queen with equal power to a King, she always wanted to be depicted with attributes of a male pharaoh, including the false beard and ram’s horns, dressed in male clothes and with masculine traits.
The lady was one of the most prolific builders in Ancient Egypt, employing the services of an architect named Ineni who also had worked for her father. She commissioned monuments in Karnak, restored the Precinct of Mut that had been ravaged during previous times (no one likes a powerful woman even if she’s the Mother Goddess, apparently), built the famous Karnak’s Red Chapel and the Temple of Pakhet at Beni Hasan, Minya. Pakhet, in case you don’t know, was another kick-ass goddess, a synthesis between the two lionesses of war Bast and Sekhmet. Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple, which I hopefully will see later on in the journey, kicks some serious asses.

The second person I long to meet is Maiherpri, lion of the battlefield, one of the most interesting evidences of the ethnic diversity and the presence of black people in Egypt during the new kingdom. You can read about it here, for instance. His tomb and his Book of the Dead should be preserved on the first floor of the museum.

The third person I’d like to meet is a poor young boy named Tutankhamun.

2. The Citadel

The Citadel of Cairo, or Citadel of Saladin, is the medieval-Islamic fort in Cairo, which was the seat of government between XIII and XIX Century. It was allegedly built by the great Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, between 1176 and 1183. Later expansions were carried out between 1310 and 1341 by An-Nasir Muhammad, 9th Mamluk sultan of the Bahri dynasty, and another set of major works was issued by Muhammad Ali, the Ottoman-Albanian governor of Egypt, between 1805 and 1848. If you paid attention yesterday, it means that the Citadel spans all three major architectural styles you can find in Cairo.

The Mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad is an early 14th-century mosque from the Malmuk period, it’s a hypostyle building (meaning its roof is supported by columns) and it stands on a 63 x 57 m rectangle. The outer walls have no decorations and speak to the military nature of the setting. It was originally built in 1318 but renovated around 20 years later: the walls were made higher, the minaret was stretched and a couple of entrances were enhanced. As such, one can only wonder how the original architect might have wanted her to look like.

The Ottoman Muhammad Ali Mosque right behind her is said to be the most impressive building in the Southern Enclosure, built on the model of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul by the Turkish architect Yusuf Boshnak. The upper walls were lined with alabaster panels, hence the alternative name of Alabaster Mosque, but the marble was taken away before the building’s completion and replaced with painted wood. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Muhammad Ali himself was buried in a Carrara marble tomb in the courtyard of the mosque, but his body was later moved.
The Mosque measures 41×41 meters. Its central dome is 21 meters in diameter, surrounded by four smaller domes and four semicircular ones, following the Ottoman fashion. The whole thing is 52 meters high, around half the dome in St Peter’s Basilica, not counting the western minaret which rises to 82 meters. It’s a big fellow.

The terminal building in the Southern Enclosure is known as the Al-Gawhara Palace, commissioned by Muhammad Ali Pasha in 1814 and designed by a melting pot of artisans including people from Albania, Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey. Its most striking characteristic is possibly the set of windows, as each person took one from home and they all arranged them on the facade. The palace is no small feat: it included barracks for the infantry, schools for every family who worked in the Citadel, an arsenal, a gunpowder factory and a mint. Everything a young boy needs.
There’s a beautiful research penned by Sayed Hemeda and Taha Abd El Moaty Atalaa from the Egypt-Japan University of Science and Technology featuring drawings of the palace, and you can find it on Research Gate.

The Sulayman Pasha Mosque is in the Northern Enclosure and it’s a smaller building, established in 1528 by the Ottoman Suleiman Pasha Al-Khadem. It was originally built for the exclusive usage of the janissaries, the elite infantry who was stationed in this area of the Citadel, and its plan is T-shaped. It is the first mosque established in Egypt following the Ottoman architectural style.
The interior is divided in two sections, covered by the single dome, and its walls are covered with green Qashani patterns and Kufic inscriptions. A verse from Quran 3:189-194 encircles the dome:

To God belongs the Kingdom of the heavens and of the earth; and God is powerful over everything.
Surely in the creation of the heavens and earth and in the alternation of night and day there are signs for men possessed of minds who remember God;
Standing and sitting on their sides, And reflect upon the creation of the heavens and the earth:
‘Our Lord, Thou has not created this for vanity, Glory be to Thee!
Guard us against the chastisement of the Fire.
Our Lord, whomsoever Thou admittest into the Fire, Thou wilt have abased; and the evildoers shall have no helpers.
Our Lord, we have heard a caller calling us to belief, saying, “Believe you in your Lord!” And we believe.
Our Lord, forgive Thou us our sins and acquit us of our evil deeds, and take us to Thee with the pious.
Our Lord, give us what Thou has promised us by Thy Messengers, and abase us not on the Day of Resurrection:
Thou wilt not fail the tryst.

One of the things that mostly interests me in the Citadel, however, is the Salah ad-Din’s Well. As you might know, the Ottoman culture has been lightyears ahead of us when it comes to drinking water, never losing the heritage of the Roman Empire and keeping it alive alongside… well, its citizens. To supply water to the Citadel, Saladin tasked his chief eunuch and confidant Qaraqush to build an 85-metre-deep well through the hard rock of the Mokattam hills, dividing it into two sections: the upper part is surrounded by a spiral staircase going down, separated from the main shaft by a thin layer of stone, and the lower part reaches the level of the Nile. Between the two parts, a chamber for oxen to turn a wheel, thus allowing people to have water even when the river’s level was at its lowest peak.
During the reign of al-Nasir Muhammad, the population in the Citadel grew enough for the well to be insufficient, and the Mamluk sultan renovated the Ayyubid aqueduct system, originally built by the Kurdish Muslim Sultan Al-Kamil by the end of the 1100s. The new aqueduct system employed a number of water wheels pumping water from the Nile to the top of a hexagonal tower.
Another part of the water infrastructure in the Citadel is the domed Cistern of Ya’qub Shah al-Mihmandar just outside the Citadel.

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3. The Bazaar

Khan el-Khalili is the most famous suq in Cairo, located North of the Citadel. It owes its name to one of its several historic caravanserais, roadside inns where travellers could rest without (much) fear of being robbed, and it was established as a centre of trade after the 14th century, during the Mamluk era.
Before that, during Fatimid times, the Caliphate had half a mind to use the area for a great palace complex, but just two buildings were finished. We believe the first place of trade was the square that resulted between these two palaces, cleverly called Bayn al-Qasrayn (“Between the Two Palaces”) so that people wouldn’t miss it.
Nowadays, this is what I’m told to expect from the bazaar.
Last time I was in a suq, it took me three days to buy a necklace. I don’t have three days.

#Spooktober 20 – Return of the Obra Dinn

If you haven’t played this murder mystery, it’s high time you start. And I don’t care if the graphics look weird to you (they are), and if you suck at puzzles (I do): the game is a masterpiece in storytelling, the music kicks asses, and the whole thing has perfect atmospheres for the Haunted Season.

The Obra Dinn is a merchant ship in the East India Company, and it has been missing for five years. It has reappeared with no one alive aboard, and you’re the lucky inspector sent on board to try and figure out what the hell happened. And hell might be involved since the ghost ship seems to hide many secrets. Sixty people were on board, and for each of them you need to provide a cause of death – if any – or the current location if you think they survived. Deaths are linked, of course, but will you be able to reach the end of the thread and discover what set in motion the fateful events that doomed the Obra Dinn?

 

Egyptian Schedule – Day 1

Hi people! Yes, yes, I know. It’s not the best of times to travel to Egypt. I should have cancelled the trip, and I knew it damn well, but there’s nothing officially wrong with the destination, at least according to our government’s dedicated web page, and the trip had been organized (and paid for) since January. Lots of things were different back then. I wasn’t displaced from my house, for instance, and I wasn’t taking pills that are making me bleed every other day. We take our joy where we can.

It’s still October, which means that the blog and my Patreon are seeing a set of scheduled posts around the theme of Halloween: it’s primarily recommendations of books, movies, tv series, music, video games and art.

I’m also preparing for my trip, though, so I decided to publish some notes on what it is that I’m going to see these days. This will be fun if the trip gets cancelled or I disappear in the Sahara desert, won’t it?

So, I haven’t much to do during day 1 except get into the Country. I land in Cairo on a 19.01 plane and transfer straight to my hotel. According to the papers I received from my hotel, I’m staying at the Steigenberger Hotel El Tahrir, overlooking the Egyptian Museum, which means I’ll be able to spy on the mummies while they party hard at night.

 

#Spooktober 19 – The Fall of the House of Usher

The show is a new and much anticipated one since it marks the return of Mike Flanagan, author and director of the acclaimed Midnight Mass. Loosely based on the homonymous short story by Edgar Allan Poe and taking inspiration from other stories as well, it brings the plot to a contemporary setting and shows us the CEO of a pharmaceutical company being confronted with his guilt as his children start mysteriously dying.

Roderick Usher is played by Bruce Greenwood, who briefly played Pike in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek reboot, while his twin sister Madeline is Mary McDonnell, a.k.a. President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica. Carla Gugino, who also starred in The Haunting of Hill House by Flanagan plays Verna, the haunting raven from Poe’s famous poem.
The show spans across 8 episodes and covers different timelines, with young Roderick and Madeline played by younger actors alternatively seen in Midnight Mass and/or The Haunting of Hill House. Mark Hamill guest stars as Arthur Pym.

List of Episodes“A Midnight Dreary”“The Masque of the Red Death”“Murder in the Rue Morgue”“The Black Cat”“The Tell-Tale Heart”“Goldbug”“The Pit and The Pendulum”“The Raven”

 

#Spooktober 18 – Uzumaki

I bought this manga at The Last Bookstore in Los Angeles right before my long travel back to Italy, and I have to be thankful I can’t sleep on airplanes, because this would have prevented me from doing that anyway.

Kurouzu-cho is a small town in Japan, constantly wrapped in fog, and it’s cursed.
Cursed by what?
Spirals.
Yeah, you heard me right.
People there are literally obsessed with that shape, which seems to emerge at random from the fabrics of reality. The hypnotic pattern has the power of revealing the secret of how the world works, and it’s too much for people to bear: some go insane in chasing the pattern, while some others die trying to escape it.

Written and illustrated by Junji Ito, it was originally published as a series and you may now find it collected in one or three volumes. Critically acclaimed, it’s now considered Ito’s masterpiece.

Index of Chapters“The Spiral Obsession Part 1”“The Spiral Obsession Part 2”“The Scar”“The Firing Effect”“Twisted Souls”“Medusa” (also known as “Winding Hair”);“Jack-in-the-Box”“The Snail”“The Black Lighthouse”“Mosquitoes”“The Umbilical Cord”“The Storm”“The House”“Butterflies”“Chaos”“Erosion”“Escape”“The Labyrinth”“Completion”

 

#Spooktober 17 – The Pale Blue Eye

Do you want a movie featuring fog in the moor, gruesome deaths, haunted war veterans and Edgar Allan Poe? Well, look no more: The Pale Blue Eye is the movie for you.

Shown in a limited selection of cinemas before being released on Netflix, the movie is written and directed by Scott Cooper (Black Mass, Hostiles), based on a novel by Louis Bayard. The movie features a huge cast of stars: alongside a troubled Christian Bale, young Edgar Allan Poe is played by an incredible Harry Melling and there are literally times when Bale seems to step back so that his young co-star may shine as he deserves. If this is not enough, add Gillian Anderson, Charlotte Gainsbourg, the always awesome Toby Jones, Timothy Spall, Robert Duvall.

It’s the perfect feature for a Spooktober evening not only due to the perfect atmospheres and the murder mysteries: it has black magic rituals, weaponized mental illness, family secrets, supportive and hostile ghosts, a doomed love story.

#Spooktober 16 – Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead

If you ask someone for a Christmas classical piece, they’ll most likely answer The Nutcracker. Everyone knows that. But what happens if you ask the same about Halloween? There probably won’t be such a unanimous answer. Some might say Carl Orff‘s Carmina Burana, for the haunting fake medieval mood. Except there’s nothing haunting about it if you listen to the lyrics. Others might say Leoncavallo‘s Pagliacci because hey, murderous clowns, but I’d rather save it for a spooky twist on Mardi Gras, alongside Verdi‘s Ballo in Maschera (spoiler: everyone dies). More refined choices might be Benjamin Britten’s Turn of the Screw, based on Henry James‘ ghost story, or Donizzetti‘s Lucia di Lammermoor, based on The Bride of Lammermoor by Walter Scott. Of course you know it: it’s the first part of the Diva’s aria in The Fifth Element.These are all fine choices, but in my opinion you can’t go wrong with the Russians.Take Modest Musorgskij, for instance. His Night on Bare Mountain would be an obvious choice, but I suggest you take a look at some other of his works, such as his Songs and Dances of Death. It’s a song cycle for baritone and piano, and my personal favourite is the Trepak where a drunken man is caught in a blizzard and meets death who invites him to dance with her.Take Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and his operas based on folklore. Kashchey the Deathless is my personal favourite and it features an evil wizard, an imprisoned princess, star-crossed lovers, sleeping potions, maidens turning into weeping willows. Kashcheyevna’s aria, sung by the daughter of the evil wizard, is one of the most haunting things you’ll hear.Take Alexander Borodin, sadly lesser-known to the masses than the previous two. He wrote a set of songs with titles such as Song of the Dark Woods, My songs are full of poison, The Sleeping Princess or The Magic Garden, and he must have been fun at parties.If you want something that will really blow your mind, however, turn to Sergei Rachmaninoff. The featured video is his Isle of the Dead, a symphonic poem explicitly inspired by Böcklin’s painting. He didn’t even see the original: he saw a black and white reproduction. And he went “You know what? I’m going to spend the next three months obsessing about this.” One of us.

#Spooktober 15 – Welsh Gothic

Pairing with last week’s book suggestion and springing from the fact that technically my Main Character is Welsh, here’s another excellent book on spooky stuff from that area.

The book is part of the amazing Gothic Literary Studies series published by the University of Wales Press and they’re a bit pricey, but they’re worth every dime. The author is Jane Aaron, Professor of English at the University of South Wales, who also published an amazing book on XIX-century women’s literature called Nineteenth-Century Women’s Writing in Wales.

This book explores the origin of Gothic, spanning from the end of the XVIII Century till 1997, and then highlights a couple of recurring elements in Welsh folklore: the Wild Hunt, Witches and the Sin-eater.

Contents

Part 1: Haunted by History

Cambia Gothica (1780s – 1820s)An Underworld of One’s Own (18302 – 1900s)Haunted Communities (1900s – 1940s)Land of the Living dead (1940s – 1997)

Part 2: Things that go Bump in the Celtic Twilight

Witches, Druids, and the Hounds of AnnwnThe Sin-eater

 

#Spooktober 14 – Adelaide Claxton

Adelaide Sophia Claxton was a British painter of ghosts and today we take a look at her work on my Patreon.