Here we are at the end of Season 2 of Bizzarro Bazar!
In this episode: the obsession with the genitals of famous men; an incredible deformed skull; the REAL tomb of Jesus Christ.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the Musei Civici di Reggio Emilia for their hospitality and for the openness with which they supported our slightly unconventional work, and in particular the extraordinary curators Georgia Cantoni, Silvia Chicchi and Riccardo Campanini: if the Museums are today a lively and always vibrant place it is thanks to their dedication and enthusiasm.
As always, this episode was directed and animated by Francesco Erba and co-produced by Erika Russo. I remind you that you can (re)watch all the episodes on my YouTube channel, where there are also other curiosities such as the one-minute Bizzarro #Shorts, and much more.
In this episode of season 2 of Bizzarro Bazar: the surprising and bloody history of the barber’s profession; Spallanzani’s bizarre experiments on frogs, snails and salamanders; the mysterious Skeleton Lake.
Produced in collaboration with the Musei Civici di Reggio Emilia.
Directed & animated by Francesco Erba.
In this episode of season 2 of Bizzarro Bazar: the voluntary deformation of parts of the body, a practice that is present in all human societies; a spectacular taxidermy; a legendary explorer.
Produced in collaboration with the Musei Civici di Reggio Emilia.
Directed & animated by Francesco Erba.
In this episode of season 2 of Bizzarro Bazar, produced in collaboration with the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia: the secret behind the grotesque wedding organized by Tsar Peter the Great; the story of a sperm whale cub that beached in Italy in the 1930s; the black flood that swept a neighborhood in Boston in 1919.
In this episode of the second season of Bizzarro Bazar, produced in collaboration with the Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia: a doctor who wanted to solve psychiatric disorders with dentist pincers; a strange and monstrous fish that belonged to Lazzaro Spallanzani; the goth prostitutes of ancient Rome.
On March 21, 2021, the Bizzarro Bazar web series will be back on my YouTube channel with 10 new episodes produced in collaboration with the prestigious Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia.
The episodes, as for the first season, will be published every other week.
By now you know what to expect: strange scientific experiments, quirky characters, human wonders, stories bordering on the impossible — in short, all the classic Bizzarro Bazar repertoire.
As usual, the direction and fantastic animations have been curated by Francesco Erba, but this time we shot the live parts in the exceptional historical collections of the Palazzo dei Musei: in each episode, in the Show & Tell section, one of the museum curators will open a display case just for us, and allow us to discover the most emblematic and curious objects and pieces.
Here is a little trailer to lighten the wait, and see you soon!
I haven’t been updating the blog lately, because it has been an intense period. Together with director Francesco Erba we completed the filming of the second season of the Bizzarro Bazar web series inside the spectacular Civic Museums of Reggio Emilia, and now post-production has begun.
However, I did not miss the opportunity to have a little chat with The Thinker’s Garden, one of the most stimulating spaces on the web: during the interview we talked about my relationship with Padua (and in particular about an autobiographical episode that ties me to the Morgagni Museum), about the Master in Death Studies organized by prof. Ines Testoni, and about the latest news regarding the series.
And with this little update, I wish you happy holidays!
Today Bizzarro Bazar is 10 years old.
I don’t want to indulge in self-congratulations, but allow me a little pride because this is quite an achievement — for all of us.
August 2009. In a dimly lit room, a thirty year old man is typing on a laptop.
The Internet was a different place then, so much so that it feels like a century ago.
Michael Jackson had died less than two months earlier, the news causing all major word websites to crash. Facebook was starting to outnumber MySpace. SMS were the only way to text your friends; in Italy perhaps a dozen people were testing this new esoteric thing called Whatsapp.
The Web looked promising. Many were convinced the internet would be the key to improving things, canceling boundaries and distances, promoting solidarity, forging a new, connected and cooperative humanity.
One fundamental tool for the imminent social revolution (there was no doubt about this) would be blogs, as they were the main tools to democratize culture, making it freely available to all.
If you were looking for a website dedicated to the macabre and the marvelous, you would have surely come across the glorious Morbid Anatomy, which back then was at its peak; there were a few good thematic blogs, but nothing in Italian.
So that afternoon of August 20th I registered the name of this blog on WordPress, wrote a welcome post (with a nod to Monty Python), and I sent an email to a dozen friends inviting them to take a look. My hope was that at least some of them would be interested for a month or two. I needed to tell someone how incredible, terrible and amazing this reality we often take for granted seemed to me. How many unexpected treasures hide behind those things that terrify us most, if we only care to understand.
CUT TO: August 2019. In a dimly lit room, a forty year old man is typing on a laptop.
The magical world of the internet has changed, and it no longer feels that magical.
Many feel harassed by its ubiquitous tentacles that crush every cell of time and life. Users have become customers, and you don’t need to be a hacker to know that the Web is full of dangers and traps. The Internet is today a privileged tool for those who want to spread fear and hatred, erase all diversity, strengthen barriers and boundaries instead of overcoming them. At first glance it would seem that the dream has been crushed.
Yet I am still here, writing on the very same blog. The Internet has remained in many ways an extraordinary space in which new initiatives are organized, different points of view are discovered, in which at times you may even change your mind.
What has all this got to do with a little blog about death, taboos, freakshows, bizarre collections and historical oddities?
In a sense I believe that here, you and I are doing an act of resistance. Not so much in a political sense — the polis cares about what happens inside or around the city walls — but some kind of cultural resistance. One might say we are resisting banality, and reduction of complexity. The lovers of the bizarre are people who prefer questions over answers, and want to explore ever stranger places.
In spite of the incalculable hours I spent studying, writing, answering all the questions from readers (and fixing bugs and server issues, damn), Bizzarro Bazar has always remained an ad-free, uncensored space.
With its 850 posts, it now looks like a mini-encyclopedia of the weird & wonderful. And if I reread some bits here and there, I can see my writing style gradually evolve thanks to your advice and your criticisms.
The web series I released this year on YouTube is a fundamental step in this long journey, carried out with passion and some sacrifices. We have invested so much effort, so many resources in it, and your response has been enthusiastic.
Many of you have expressed the hope that there might be a second season, so let’s get to the point: for the first time Bizzarro Bazar is summoning its army of freak and heretic followers!
We started a campaign on the Italian crowdfunding website produzionidalbasso.com to finance the new season.
Here is the video for our project (be sure to turn on the English subtitles):
This is our only chance at the moment to keep the most anomalous Italian web series alive. But in reality it means much more.
If you help us, what will see the light will no longer be “the Bizzarro Bazar series”, but your own series.
The (Google-translated) page for our campaign is available at THIS LINK.
Shortlink to copy and share with friends: bit.ly/bizzarrobazar Note: for us, the best method to receive a donation is by credit card/wire transfer, because PayPal is bleeding us with very high commissions, but shhhh, I didn’t tell you anything. 😉
Thank you all for these unbelievable ten years, thanks if you’ll be kind enough to consider donating… and to those who will shamelessly spam our project among their acquaintances.
Still and always, vive la Résistance! — in other words,
In the 10th episode of Bizzarro Bazar Web Series: the psychedelic story of crainal trepanation advocates; the african fetish hiding a dark secret; the Club that has the most macabre initiation ritual in the whole world.
[Be sure to turn on English captions]
And so we came to the conclusion … at least for this first season.
Will there be another one? Who knows?
For the moment, enjoy this last episode and consider subscribing to the channel if you haven’t yet. Cheers!