Here we are at the 13th birthday of Bizzarro Bazar, and the 5th Bizzarro Bazar Contest!
As in previous years, I like to celebrate this recurrence by awarding prizes for the most macabre, creepy and wacky fantasy; to participate just stick to the rules, which are always the same:
Create an original contribution that makes explicit reference to Bizarro Bazar;
Remember, the idea is to give free rein to your weirdest creativity in a safe space where a morbid mind is valued and cherished — you’re among friends here!
“Explicit reference” means that Bizzarro Bazar (the site, the logo, one of the books, even my goatee) must be depicted/mentioned/included within the contribution. Keep in mind that, while promoting your creations, I also want to promote this blog. Win-win.
For a better understanding you can take a look at the first, second, third and fourth edition entries.
And now to the prizes:
1st prize: T-shirt of your choice + mug of your choice from the official store + surprise gift 2nd prize: T-shirt of your choice from the official store + surprise gift 3rd prize: T-shirt of your choice from the official store
The best unclassified entries will still be published on Bizarro Bazar with links to the authors’ websites/profiles, and shared on social media.
Today this blog turns 12 years old! As in previous years, I’d love to celebrate by rewarding your most macabre and eccentric fantasy: get ready for the 4th Bizzarro Bazar Contest!
The rules are the same as last time:
Create an original work explicitly referring to Bizzarro Bazar;
Remember that the idea is to allow free rein to your weird creativity, to celebrate and above all to have fun among friends!
By “explicitly referring” to the blog I mean that Bizzarro Bazar (the website, logo, one of my books, even my beard if it comes to that) must be depicted/mentioned/included in the entry. Keep in mind that, while promoting your creations, I also want to promote this blog. Win-win.
My advise is to skim through the beautiful contributions from the first, second and third editions of the contest.
And now let’s take a look at the prizes:
1st prize: T-shirt of your choice + Mug of your choice from the official store + surprise gift
2nd prize: T-shirt of your choice from the official store + surprise gift
3rd prize: T-shirt of your choice from the official store
The best unclassified entries will be published on Bizzarro Bazar with links to the authors websites/profiles, and shared on social networks.
Today this blog crosses the milestone of 11 years of activity, and in order to celebrate, the Bizzarro Bazar Contest is back!
Are you ready to enter the challenge and give free rein to your most eccentric and macabre fantasies?
The rules are the same as last time:
Create an original work explicitly referring to Bizzarro Bazar;
Remember that the idea is to allow free rein to your weird creativity, to celebrate and above all to have fun among friends!
By “explicitly referring” to the blog I mean that Bizzarro Bazar (the website, logo, one of my books, even my beard if it comes to that) must be depicted/mentioned/included in the entry. Keep in mind that, while promoting your creations, I also want to promote this blog. Win-win.
My advise is to skim through the beautiful contributions from the first and second editions of the contest.
And now let’s take a look at the prizes:
1st prize: T-shirt of your choice + Mug of your choice + Mousepad of your choice from the official store
2nd prize: T-shirt of your choice + Mug of your choice from the official store
3rd prize: T-shirt of your choice from the official store
The best unclassified entries will be published on Bizzarro Bazar with links to the authors websites/profiles, and shared on social networks.
Seven little lessons to rediscover our everyday life.
Seven days for the Creation… of a new perspective.
DAY 7 – REST OR FREEDOM
The well-known detail: The weekend has arrived. You have two days of free time at last, which you can use to: 1) do the cleaning; 2) set up the online payment of the latest bills; 3) organize that business dinner for next week; 4) clear the sink which is full of piled up dishes; 5) go to that concert even if you don’t feel like it, but you have already bought the tickets; 6) study the new offers from telephone providers; 7) visit your neighbours to maintain relations (which you’ve been delaying for weeks); 8) go shopping; 9) catch up with overdue laundry and ironing; 10) any other business. The two days are over in a jiffy. On Sunday evening, to chase away the shadow hanging over the back of your mind, you start watching that funny video on the Internet that everyone but you in the office has already seen. One video leads to another, and at three in the morning you’re still on your computer. It’s already Monday, and you’re more tired than before
The background: Even during free time you can feel anything but free. Caged as we are in our schedule, in a fragmented time marked only by planned and unavoidable duties, we tend to fill the hours with incentives and to keep our minds moving even when we have nothing to do; otherwise it seems to us we’re wasting our time. Rather than just sitting around doing nothing, we start playing a mini-game on the phone: to quit doing things is increasingly becoming a taboo today. The machine of the so-called late-stage capitalism demands from us that we constantly produce (or become products ourselves). Excitement does not stop for a second, there is no rest at all, there is no boredom. Perhaps it would be enough to learn the ancient Chinese art of “doing without effort”. For instance, the skilled butcher never sharpens his knife because he knows how to exploit the spaces inside the flesh, his blade passes through the cavities between the bones and never go blunt; yet if you ask him how he can cut so perfectly maybe he won’t be able to answer. Instinctively, and thanks to practice, this ninja-butcher has learned to recognize emptiness and fullness, he knows when to sink his knife and when to withdraw it, he is aware that the key is alternating effort and relaxation, doing and not doing. Even the God of Genesis, when on the seventh day he allows himself a little relaxation after the efforts of creation, is not just having a rest. He is completing his work through rest. Stasis is an essential moment of creating (and of creation), such a fundamental part that the seventh is the only day that God defines as sacred. Doing without doing, completing with rest: all this sounds very good on paper, but how does it apply to our everyday life? Help comes to us from an often misunderstood state of mind: boredom. A study conducted in 2013 by the University of Central Lancashire suggests that performing a repetitive and uninspiring task can sometimes influence creativity in a positive way. A group of 40 subjects was given a monotonous task consisting in copying phone numbers from a phonebook; on the other hand, a control group wasn’t asked to do anything. Subsequently, psychologists presented polystyrene cups to both groups, asking the participants to come up with as many uses as possible for these objects. Those who had been bored by copying telephone numbers found creative solutions which were definitely more original than the others. Boredom gives the mind an opportunity to rest, but also to fantasize. Scientists are convinced that mind wandering is essential for learning, developing creative thinking, solving problems, planning and simulating future events, and then making decisions.
The Seventh Lesson: Since we are no longer able to simply stop doing, here is a replacement exercise. Try to dedicate yourself to a long, repetitive and above all boring task. You can do whatever you prefer: dust your old collection of action figures, wash the dishes by hand, paint a wall – or even better, perform a completely useless activity. Do it without music, without notifications from your mobile phone, unconcerned about the result and enjoying this ancient sensation to the full. A little boredom is good for the organism, the mind and even philosophy (many thinkers, from Giacomo Leopardi to Bertrand Russell, have included it among the most sublime human feelings).
Therefore, claim boredom as a luxury or, better, an inalienable right! On Monday morning, when your colleagues ask you what you have done on the weekend, you can proudly answer: “I got bored, and I liked it.”
Today Bizzarro Bazar enters its 10th year of activity!
Last year, my somewhat reckless idea of celebrating the blog’s birthday with a contest ended up having overwhelming results: you guys submerged me with wonderful creations — short stories, photographs, drawings, sculptures, paintings, music and every kind of weird stuff. During the following months, I often went back and skimmed through your works whenever I was in need of a little shot of confidence.
So, if by any chance you’re tired of doing crosswords on the beach, what about going at it once more?
The rules are the same as last time:
Create an original work explicitly referring to Bizzarro Bazar;
Remember that the idea is to allow free rein to your weirdest creativity, to celebrate and above all to have fun among friends!
Point 1 created a bit of confusion last time, so let me specify the concept: “explicitly referring” to the blog means that Bizzarro Bazar (the website, logo, one of my books, even my beard if it comes to that) must be depicted/mentioned/included in the entry. Keep in mind that, while promoting your creations, I also want to promote this blog. Win-win.
My advise is to skim through the beautiful contributions which got published at the end of the first edition.
Today is Bizzarro Bazar’s birthday, the blog is 8 years old!
(My cats’ health book informs me that 8 feline years roughly correspond to 48 human years; I wonder if there’s a similar calculation for blogs, whose life expectancy is far less than a cat’s.)
To celebrate together, I thought I’d involve you all in a little game: let’s launch our first Bizzarro Bazar Contest!
Free your most “strange, macabre & wonderful” fantasies, and create something that has to do with Bizzarro Bazar.
I am not going to tell you what that something should be: drawings, comics, paintings, fanart, caricatures, photographs, selfies, but also videos, poems, songs… well, any odd stuff your creativity might suggest.
To enter the contest you must:
Create an original work explicitly referring to Bizzarro Bazar: what I mean is that Bizzarro Bazar (the website, the logo, a publication, even my own beard if nothing else!) should be pictured/mentioned within the work;
Post your work on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #bizzarrobazarcontest — alternatively, you can submit it by email;
Be confident and wait until September 10;
Remember that I’m calling it contest, but it’s not about competition — the idea is to allow free rein to your morbid creativity, celebrate these first 8 years of weirdness, and have fun among friends.
3 prizes will be awarded:
1st prize: Signed book from Bizzarro Bazar Collection (of your choice) + BB shopping bag + surprise gift pack 2nd prize: Signed book from Bizzarro Bazar Collection (of your choice) + BB shopping bag 3rd prize: Signed book from Bizzarro Bazar Collection (of your choice)
Best unclassified entries will be published on Bizzarro Bazar with links to the authors websites/profiles.
Alright, let your imagination run wild and remember the deadline is September 10. Keep The World Weird!
The island of Ischia, pearl of the Neapolitan Gulf, holds a secret.
It’s a sort of exaltation, a deviant behavior caused by the very limited living space or maybe by an instinctive desire of marking the territory: it’s the plague of frauca — the unauthorized construction, in infringement of all local building regulations.
The Ischian resident, in order to be (or to think of himself as) respected, has to build, construct, erect.
It might be just a screed, a dry stone wall, a second floor or a small living quarter for his son who’s about to get married. All rigorously unauthorized, these supplements to the house are built in disregard of those strict and suffocating rules he feels are killing his creativity; and which often force him to demolish what he so patiently constructed.
No family is without an expert in this field, and often more than one member is mastro fraucatore or mezza cucchiara (nicknames for a master builder).
But the free zone, the real no man’s land where all the islanders’ construction dreams come true is the graveyard.
To walk through the avenues of the Ischia Municipal Cemetery means to discover surprising tombs the relatives of the deceased decorated with materials found around the island: lava stones from the volcanic Mount Epomeo, polished rocks from the many beaches, sea shells and scallops; stones from the Olmitello creek or pizzi bianchi of carsic origin.
Other tombs incorporate remainings and leftovers from unauthorized constructions, such as unused bricks or decorated floor tiles.
No grave is similar to another, in this array of different materials and colors. But there is a specific niche of funeral art, reserved to those who worked as fishermen.
To honor the deceased who, during their lifetime, bravely defied the sea for the catch of the day, granting the survival and well-being of their family, a peculiar grave is built in the shape of a gozzo, the typical Ischian fishing boat.
This is a touching way of saying a last goodbye, and looking at these hand-crafted graves one cannot help but appreciate the genuine creativity of these artisans. But the tombs seem to be the ultimate, ironic redemption of the heirs of Typhon: a payback for that building urge, that longing for cement and concrete which was constantly repressed during their lifetime.
