Sunday, October 26, 2008

Fun with giallo, plus a book worth talking about

Giallo: (pronounced IPA: ['ʤallo], plural gialli) is an Italian 20th-century genre of literature and film, which in Italian indicates crime fiction and mystery.

Courtesy of Marco, who has posted numberous illuminating and stimulating comments here, and, if memory serves, Adrian McKinty comes news of the Do-It-Yourself-Giallo Kit. Click on that link, and you'll see the title, director and plot synopsis of a bogus giallo movie. Hit refresh, and you'll see another. Do it all day and all night, if you'd like, and you'll likely hit a plot or two that will remind you of something you've read or seen. (Click here for a discussion of giallo and its various definitions.)

And then tell me about it. What real books, stories and movies do the bogus gialli remind you of?

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McKinty's novel The Bloomsday Dead, very much worth reading, is now officially one of Fifty Books to Talk About as well, and you can help make it one of ten and then the Book to Talk About in 2009. Cast your vote here.

© Peter Rozovsky 2008

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14 Comments:

Blogger adrian mckinty said...

I'll take part of the credit and issue a warning. Dont go to the site if you dont want to spend the next three or four hours gleefully hitting the refresh key.


word verification "amnesac" - this reminded me of something but what I cannot recall.

October 26, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

The one I just got has a title more Christie than giallo: Six Dead Orchids in a Silver Casket.

October 26, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Peter,two things:

The credit for the discovery of the Giallo Maker goes to Seanag-I feel an usurper.

The image is not taken from a giallo Mondadori-their covers have always been family friendly (well,apart for splashes of blood,maybe) -but from one of its competitors (I know,Wikipedia being wrong,shocking!).
As you can see here ,in the gialli Mondadori the image on the cover is always inscribed in a circle,originally with a very visible red border .

October 26, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Thanks for the correction. I have removed the Mondadori credit from my post.

I feel especially foolish to have been taken in by a Wikipedia error. I have long felt that Wikipedia has great potential for spreading inaccuracies and mistakes and that the use of the -pedia particle in its name constitutes a deliberate deception. The occasional claims one sees that Wikipedia represents a democratization of knowledge are reprehensible.

Thanks for the real Mondadori images. Thanks, too, to seanag.

October 26, 2008  
Blogger adrian mckinty said...

Seanag's running a bookstore in that little piece of heaven that runs from Santa Cruz to Monterey Bay. I'd say that's reward enough -unless the bookstore is constantly over-run with mean surfer boys, but somehow I think not.

Peter, so easy to bash to Wikipedia, but let me ask you something, did you jump to the entry and fix it as a public service to others? . . .Ah, the fault Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves.

October 26, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

I'll leave the fixing to Marco, should he decide to do so, since he's the one with the knowledge.

My fault lies in having been taken in by that which I purported to condemn. If I distrusted it so much, why did I post the link rather than checking more thoroughly into the matter?

October 26, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

Looks like someone has fixed it already. But I still maintain that one ought to be wary of Wikipedia, perhaps using as a backup resource at most. I might use Wikipedia as a source of gross information, such as whether an event took place in North America or in Asia, or whether it happened in the eighteenth century or the twelfth. But I would never use it for anything so vital as journalistic research or a bar bet.

I once joked that my newspaper's electronic archive's slogan ought to be "Preserving the mistakes of the past for the researchers of the future." Wikipedia has similar potential.

October 26, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"Preserving the mistakes of the past for the researchers of the future." Wikipedia has similar potential.

Not likely,since it can be continuosly edited.
I find Wikipedia rather good (how many Enciclopedias would have very informative articles on,for example,Giallo,Star Trek or Adrian McKinty?)-and the errors are mostly minor.
You only have to cultivate a healty skepticism, which is useful also when dealing with sources that may seem more reliable.
Wikipedia discussion and recent change pages are a good reminder of how strongly,expecially in the case of "hot" topics,competing agendas try to influence supposedly neutral information-something which happens everywhere,not only on Wikipedia.

wooksa,
Marco

October 27, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

I maintain a healthy, if cantankerous, skepticism about Wikipedia. I hadn't known about the discussion pages, but I'd feel happier if the discussion happened before the information was published.

And a constantly evolvolving reference source is probably a good response to the fluid mature of the Web, but that very fluidity can't be a comfprt to people looking for information.

On the other hand, you're right about its range. I link to Wikipedia from time to time, but only when I can't find another source that seems more reliable.

October 27, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

And a hearty wooksa to you, too.

October 27, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

wooksa was my v-word-you should have responded with one of yours.
The number of intelligible v-words has increased exponentially.
My latest one,crionica,seems to hint that while our minds are trapped in the simulation,our bodies are conserved under ice.

October 27, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

I knew what wooksa was; I was alluding to its suitability as a greeting, evidence of the evidence of the increasing versatility of verification words.

I did not respond with one of mine because I was already logged in, which meant I needed no verification to post on my own blog -- unlike now, when my word sounds like something you might sprinkle on your pasta in a few hours: rogna.

My favorite recent verification word has been Anthony Perkins on a bicycle, or "cycho."

October 27, 2008  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

unlike now, when my word sounds like something you might sprinkle on your pasta in a few hours: rogna

well...I dont know the kind of people you frequented in Italy,but I prefer my pasta with ragù,thanks.
(rogna is mange)

denthe,
Marco

October 27, 2008  
Blogger Peter Rozovsky said...

You'd better be sure to brush your denthe carefully if I ever serve dinner, then.

I had no idea that rogna was a word. Our game has proved educational.

October 27, 2008  

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