AnimaMundi

Life at a Funeral & The Shadow Of Her Smile

Rain, thicker-than-Vicks fog and blanket humidity meant I did not find those fried clams south of Hartford. Since the price of a gallon of gas is soo cheap now, I backtracked to 91 North and headed south on Route 9 towards Old Saybrook, where Einstein summered for a time, legendarily handing out dimes to youngin's on the street. He used to visit friends in Watch Hill, RI. from which he sailed alone on the Atlantic without a life preserver even though he could not swim. I stopped at archetypal-New England Essex, CT for a lunch at The Black Seal, which is a fixture in the town and can always counted on for good fare. The bar crowd was mix of working men and older conservative wealthy men who spoke of money, NYC and not much else. Talkin' 'bout the Amtrak shore line from New London to NYC to meet an old friend for lunch. Are they downsizing? I doubt it. Thanks to the heat, humidity and my stupidity, I left Essex by the wrong road. This is getting long already and I haven't reached the gist of the funeral and seeing an old friend on a whim.

Along with my disabled-from-birth cousin Peter Chiaradio with whom I stayed, we got to my Uncle Cosmo's wake about 5 pm on this past Monday. After my cousin Peter's father died at the age of 59 in 1981 and his mother gave up the ghost a few years later, my Uncle Cosmo tried to help his brother's son by being his surrogate father. My cousin Peter lives in poorly maintained low income housing. His rent is $290/month and his disability is about $460/month. He smokes cigarettes, a lot. Peter could snag a 20 hour a week job that would do him good and help with the bills. Since his speech is slurred and he walks with a pronounced limp, he knows that he will get only menial work since he is disabled. He has more friends than I will ever have. Some are out only to use him since he has big heart, but others are friends in the struggle to survive. The only thing I could say to him was for him to watch his ass. I said other things, but I know that I was wasting my breath. He has to father himself. He has a tough road ahead. I hope that I can encourage him to walk with his head up high and regain his self-respect.

After spotting him at the funeral home, my first objective was to return the favor of a tongue lashing to my cousin Oscar W. I neglected to take it outside, but lowered my voice somewhat and then lowered the boom. He was having a discussion with another cousin on a couch. I proceeded to go up one side of him and down the other. He never said a word except to try to ignore me and continue his conversation. That did not fly. I asked him if he knew what "niente!" meant. I translated it for him the magical three times. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Emphatically, with fingers and thumb together. I felt my long gone grandmother and father, uncles and aunts fueling my articulated anger. He asked for it and he got it in spades. I showed him how Sicilian I could be. No one says things like he said to me last November and gets away with it. Relieved, I paid my respects to my Uncle Cosmo. You had a good long run. Old Grandad and cigarettes. Stories that curled up like smoke above your shoulder. He was the last of the great storytellers in my family. Toughy they called him and he was. Many people were there. Many more would have been there had he not outlived them.

Black thunderstorms threatened the afternoon of the funeral. The air was heavy. His nieces and friends recalled him at the funeral home. Some of the tributes were heartfelt and delivered with grace, humor, tears and compassion. People clapped and bravos! were heard. Uncle Coz, it was a good send off. A brass band playing St. James Infirmary (http://www.redhotjazz.com/songs/louie/savoy/stjames.ram and the returning second line are the only things that could have made it better. I believe that the message of compassionate mercy that was stressed in various ways had an effect upon most of the people there. A good thing from a death and loss.

After the funeral, I took some caciocavallo and Regaleali Nero d'Avola over to my Uncle's home to share with his son and daughter.

On the way there, I drove by an old friend's home and noticed a car with Connecticut plates in the driveway. I knew that his sister Dale, for whom I had a soft spot in my heart when a pup, lived in that state. It had been some 40 some years since I had last seen her. I had thought more than few times about a chance meeting someday. I walked up to the door and asked if someone named Dale was there. She answered the door dressed elegantly in black with silver bracelets on her slim wrists, like she just stepped out of a Fellini film. She said that she was who she was and asked who I was. I stepped inside and removed my Raybans. We looked each other in the eyes and within a split second she broke into her memorable smile and her eyes sparkled. "Oh, my God!" she cried. We hugged and she led me in to the kitchen to speak with her 90 year old mother who is another marvel of lucidity and humor. She had just finished making her own pizza. In 85 degree heat and humidity. After I told her who I was she instantly remembered me. Like her mother, Dale has a great sense of humor and a hardy infectious laugh. I told her mother that her daughter had mercilessly shot me down and would not give me the time of day. Totally untrue. Dale protested, laughed and blushed. The truth is that I was shy and awkward. Still am, somewhat. The years have been kind to her and she has retained that spark that attracted me to her so long ago. She now has two grown offspring, one a lawyer in Boston and another a daughter looking to enter Skidmore College. I could sense that she is an honestly devoted mother and seems content and grounded in life. She and her husband, a successful cardiologist, summer on Groton Long Point where the homes of the affluent are cheek by jowl. We reminisced and laughed a lot. It was so good to see her and I am glad that I made the stop. I was also pleased to hear that her life has been full and satisfying. Reunions and re-membering. People and things coming back together after events and circumstances have fatefully scattered them. The river flows on carrying it all back together into the sea. Time is a river with no banks, as Chagall painted.

"Someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only of life and reality: the female human being.

This advance (at first very much against the will of the outdistanced men) will transform  the love experience, which is now filled with error, will change it from the ground up, and reshape it into a relationship that is meant to be between one human being and another, no longer one that flows from man to woman. And this more human love (which will fulfill itself with infinite consideration and gentleness, and kindness and clarity in binding and releasing) will resemble what we are now preparing painfully and with great struggle: the love that consists in this: two solitudes protect and border and greet each other.

And one more thing: Don't think that the great love which was once granted to you, when you were a boy, has been lost; how can you know whether vast and generous wishes didn't ripen in you at that time, and purposes by which you are still living today? I believe that that love remains so strong and intense in your memory because it was your first deep aloneness and the first inner work that you did on your life."

Rainier Maria Rilke, "Letters To a Young Poet"

Image Source

My Uncle Cosmo

My cosmic uncle Cosmo Chiaradio (far right at my mother's wedding) died on Friday June 21. He was 96 and brother to my mother who died on June 19, 1974. Interesting that both died close to the summer solstice, the birth of winter. He had a special affection for my mother. My uncle was lucid and sharp right to the end of his life. He was an individual and a character of the first order. He stood on his own and made no bones about expressing his dislike for certain members of my family. I always respected him for that. He was also the great story teller of my family. He was engaging and curious about the world. When he told those stories that are the oral history of la familigia, I listened intently. I should have had a tape recorder, but a lot of it is within me. He had a great sense of humor and was direct, no bullshit. He let you know right away how you stood with him. I will always remember his mean fiery chicken spezzatino. He was also enterprising, building his own Motel Capri on Route #1 in the 1950's. So long pardner, you had a good run. Not chin-tann, but damned close. I'm off to Westerly, RI for his wake tomorrow and the burial on Tuesday. If my uncle's wake and funeral is half as interesting as the last family funeral, then I will have some stories to relate. Luckily, it's not a full moon this time.

In front of four of his sisters, New Years Eve 1973

Jude Ciccolella

I met Jude Ciccolella, who plays Mike Novik on the TV series 24, while working at the Albany NY County Department of Social Services in the early 70's. We hit off right away. He and I both loved music, literature, drinking, women and humor. Chick, the name he went by in those days, had passion and determination. Like me he was looking for someone and something. We both knew that we hadn't started to find it, but at least we knew that much, sort of. One Friday night we heard a knock on the door of our apartment. I opened the door and Dick walked in quite drunk and reeking of a onion-laced submarine sandwich that he had just devoured. I said Chick come in. Chick is about a foot taller than I and at least 2 feet wider. What could I say? Sorry Chick, no more room at the inn. He could have easily flattoned me into one of those stand up cardboard figures. Besides I liked him. He came into our apartment, uttered a few things and fell on the floor face down. We would have had to call for help to move him. Chick was/is not a featherweight. I got a blanket and covered him up. He was gone before we awoke the next morning. Chick loved Brando. He would always talk about Brando's style of acting. Brando was one of his archetypes. Not long after he told me that he was leaving for acting school. The next and last time that I saw him in person was in NYC in the early 80's. Kathy and I had gone down to the city for a weekend and we were staying near Madison Square Garden. After we checked in we went in search of lunch. Right around the corner from the hotel I spotted Chick on one end of a couch that he was being moving into someone's apartment. I walked up behind him and asked him for a quarter. He did a double take and then we both laughed. He told me that he had got advertisement gigs, living up in Morningside Heights and was still plugging for some acting jobs that he could get his teeth into. Then he started showing up in quite a few TV commercials. I knew then that he was going to make it. He did and I am happy for his success. He went after it, perservered and worked hard. He derserves it.

The Vegetable-Herb Garden

"May your garden, like mine, give you "Victory" over the high cost of fresh vegetables as well as the joy and good health that come from living close to nature." Jim Crockett "Crockett's Victory Garden, 1977.

My next door neighbor spends close to $500 a year on a lawn service. That's not including mowing. That's just for the treatments. The American suburban lawn. After I mowed a small section of our shrinking lawn yesterday, I yelled over to him that it only cost me $12 to mow this time! I prefer to put my sweat and some compost into my garden from which we can reap some fruits during the spring, summer and fall. Yesterday, I finally planted mesclun mix (Canadian @$9/lb in spring), Bibb lettuce, Cos/Romaine lettuce, scallions and cilantro. I had been waiting on a rototiller man, but I couldn't delay any longer. The growing season is too short in upstate NY. For the past 12 days it has been unusually warm and dry for April, but today brought a cold soaking rain. Warm and under lights, I have three varieties of tomatoes, hot and sweet peppers, culinary herbs. My shallots are outdoors freezing their bulbs off hardening themselves to the cool nights. Bush haricot vert and chives should just about round it out for the 12x20 ft plot that I have worked for 25 years or so. I remember my grandmother refusing to let my cousin use a rototiller in her garden. This was many years ago when tillers were not that common. My grandmother's garden had running water, pear trees and chicken coops in the back. It was not a small garden, but it was well fertilized with manure. She fed at least six households with fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs and chickens. I venture to guess that it was maybe 10-15 the size of my small bit of fertile land. I don't know the exact reason why she refused a tiller in there, but I suppose it was new fangled and that was enough. But you know, she was right. Turning my garden over by hand does a more thorough job than a rototiller and does not compact the soil. Like the old farmer's saying: "Plant corn when the oak leaves are as large as a squirrel's ear."

Summer of '42

Here are two photos of my parents' wedding in the spring-summer of 1942, just before my father was shipped to Fort Devens, MA, Florida, Denver and then overseas. As a member of the Army Airforces in England c.1943 or 1944, he flew in a B-17 photographing bombing runs. I remember looking at some of these photographs when a young boy. I will always remember seeing the hairline. After my mother died in 1974, my father began gathering photos of my mother and him into albums. I don't believe he had good memories of those bombing runs and he probably destroyed the photos. He never talked about the war much and I never asked. After the war he never flew again. Although he would rave about certain Sicilian foods, he would not fly to Sicily when he got the chance after retiring. Now I know why. These pictures were taken at The Knickerbocker Cafe in Westerly, RI. The top left photo of the cake cutting has on the right seated, my very religious and gracious godmother, my mother's cumarra, Amelia Turrisi. On the left is my mother's youngest sister, my aunt Anna and in front of her my cousin Bob. The photo on the right is my mother with her sisters in front of The Knickerbocker Cafe. Left to right: my aunt Celena, my mother Louise, in front my aunt Anna, aunt Antoinette, aunt Rose.

Vegetables and Herbs, All Legal Unfortunately

This is the spring-summer-fall lineup for our garden that is about 130 square feet in area. One fourth of the space is already planted to a few varieties of garlic: Spanish Roja, Music, German White, German Red. Seedlings that are currently under lights indoors next to the furnace: Prisma Shallots, Cayenne Pepper, Carmen Sweet Pepper, Sun Gold Cherry Tomato, Rutgers Tomato, Jet Star Tomato, Cilantro, Genovese Basil, Broad Leaf Thyme, Greek Oregano, Gigante d'Italia Parsley. Buttercrunch Lettuce, Mesclun Mix, Blushed Butter Cos Lettuce, Evergreen Scallion, Masai Bush Haricots Verts will be directly seeded after the garden is tilled. Red Russian Kale, Winterbor Kale, Arugula and Broccoli Rape are seeded in late July for fall picking, as are lettuces. I plant or seed intensively in areas rather than rows. This method works better in a small garden.   

The Knickerbocker

The Knickerbocker Cafe was THE place in Westerly, RI for dining and dancing in the big band era. Many great names have played The Knick over the years: Coleman Hawkins, Big Joe Turner, Eddie Cleanhead Vinson, Roy Brown, Albert Collins, Johnny Copeland, The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Johnny Nicholas and, of course, the extremely hot and talent-laden Roomful of Blues. Roomful preserved an essential legacy in their music. They did a very important thing by playing their asses off and hearts out. It was for the love of the music and a temple to that music, The Knickerbocker Cafe. The following articles honor the renaissance that Roomful of Blues brought to the Knick in the early 70's. The Knick at the Center of It All and Westerly and The Blues from the Westerly Sun. The good news that is that the Knick is coming back! It is finally getting the restoration it so rightly deserves.

I, like so many other people, have many fond memories of this historical place where so many people had so many good times. This is my mother at her wedding reception in front of The Knickerbocker, 1942.

Uncle Fester

I have been told that I now look Uncle Fester from The Addams Family. Photos upon request. See, I gave myself a haircut a few weeks ago. I did ok, except for an area on the left side of my skull in front of the ear. After a somewhat close pass, it looked like it had been weed whacked or UFOized, like the corn fields without the labyrinthine flair. So, to save face, I thought it best to start with a severely pruned noggin'. From here on in, it's just a matter of maintaining a slight 1 inch growth. If it doesn't turn out good, well that's life. Cardinal rule when you are losing hair: keep it short. No pony tails down the front of face.

Louis

I have not known Louis that long. We met while we were both working for the NY State Department of Health around 1997 or so. Many offices from the Department of Health and and one from Social Services had been amalgamated into a mess of bureaucratic alienation of Kafkaesque proportions. No one knew who was doing what and why or how. Thanks, asshole Governor Pataki. Pure paradise. Louis was one of the secretaries of the malformed unit. No one knew what to bring to which secretary. Louis is an extra-ordinary individual with the poise of a old fashion gentleman. He has love, compassion, honesty, joy, curiousity, zeal for debate, respect, understanding and non-egostic self love. He had already had one heart transplant when I had met him. I found him to be very well read and more importantly close to life. His vitality and tenacity are contagious. Sometime around 2000, Louis needed another heart. His brother died of the same heart ailment. Ironically, as a youth, Louis was a phenomenal athlete. He was and still is under the care of NY-Presbyterian in Manhattan. Louis waited for what seemed like an eternity before some poor soul died in an auto accident. His young matched heart became Louis's new lease on life, after a long struggle on the brink of death more than a few times awaiting the vital organ from the dead. His will to live and tenacity is awe inspiring. My words are token attempts for what I feel. I had not called Louis for a few months. I know he is an avid hunter with two expertly trained pointers/setters.  As if this is not enough, his 13 year old dog is under a deathwatch for cancer. During hunting season it's hard to get a hold of him. I called him the other day and he answered. I could tell by the way he answered that things were not good. His transplanted kidney is cancerous. He has three of them, two of which shutdown a few years ago. In the spring-summer he had told me that a biopsy had shown some cancer, but that treatment was underway to banish the beast. He now faces dialysis or a transplant from his sister. The doctors are caucusing. Louis, you are truly an amazing human being.   

Happy Birthday, Mom

My mother in Lakeland, Florida where my father was in training for the Army Air Force circa 1942.

Winter has come to the great Northeast. Burning orange peel on the wood stove seeps into the rooms upstairs from the basement and childhood memories awaken.

My mother would have 91 next week, had she lived beyond the age of 58. She died of multiple myeloma, not a painless death in the 70's. The Merck Manual describes it as an agonizing termination. An aunt told me that my mother screamed out only once in pain while in Deaconess Memorial in Boston, where they tried to prolong her short life in vain. Her birthday was December 22, but she was never one for competing with the Savior. That wasn't her way and style. My mother was generous and a mediator in the family. She was the first of her sisters and brothers to pass away. After her death in 1974, the already existent rifts in la familia became more pronounced. There was no unitary family any longer, but rather many families who liked to believe that fantasy of one family. I wonder what she would think and feel today.

The invective, a kind word, has been horrific.

Uncle George, what the hell would you have said and thought? You were a peacemaker too in your short life. Though, I remember times when you gave it good to certain people. Not often, but convincingly. Nostalgia is much more than what it seems. Memory and fantasy, playing with each other.

"You Are Dissatisfied With Yourself Because You Never Lived Up To Your Potential"

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”

Theodore Roosevelt

"I built me a flame late one night. When day is done God will my flame never dies out."

It's cold in the great Northeast. Down to the single digits tonight. I was about to bring some wood in, but first scooped out some extra ash left in our stove from last winter's final fire. As I shoveled, I felt what I thought was a unburned chunk of wood. The object was half of this: A cast iron side baffle that not only collects and radiates heat but also protects the sides of the 250 lb stove from excessive heat. They hang on each side of the stove. My next door neighbor, who is very helpful and a welder, took a look at it and is going to try to link the two pieces back together. Rather than weld them back together, he is going to rig some kind of metal strap and screw them together. The split is pretty clean so we'll see. In the meantime, I called one local authorized dealer and inquired about obtaining a replacement baffle. The male who answered had to confer with a woman in the background about this. She said it would take eight, yes 8, months to get the part since it would have to come from Norway, where the stoves are manufactured. I said "What?!" They then said by then I wouldn't need it since it would be warm weather. They were right on there. These people are from a placed called Watervliet. But they might as well have been in Antarctica which is what the wind chill feels like outside. After getting off the phone with these mathematical wizards, I called another authorized dealer who was slightly more with it. He looked up the part and told me that it is $150. He said he would call Jotul parts in Philadelphia on Monday to see if they have it in stock or have to get it from their midwest warehouse. The gentleman was also kind enough to direct me to a website of a place in New Hampshire that sells parts for all sorts of stoves. I located the part and ordered it for $77, just in case the one my neighbor is mending comes apart. Or I could go to Norway to buy the damned part. The post title above is written in Norwegian above the door. The base relief on the sides depicts a horse, elk, birds, a man cutting wood and small cabin. You can make some of it out if you click on the picture above. The newer models have only a bear on the side. The stove is 30 years old and has kept us warm a long time. It's in the cellar and provides heat to the kitchen floor and some of the first floor. Jotul makes 'em to last. 

The Myth of Family and Childhood

Thomas Moore's "Care Of The Soul" (c.1992) was probably the only NYTimes best seller that I have ever read. Some people consider it new agey, but I think that is beside the point. Paraphrasing and quoting in spots: Part II is entitled "Care of the Soul in Everyday Life". Chapter II under that is sub-titled "The Myth of Family and Childhood." At the start, Moore quotes William Blake: "Eternity is in love with the productions of time". You know this is not going to be about another silly love song by The Beatles. He says that soul feeds on the concrete vernacular of the particular. Details, quirks, infinite variety of life. Since the family is loaded with major and minor crises, characters, success, failure, ups and downs of health, it is the primary source of nourishment to the soul. Many of us reading this were born in the golden age of the family. If we could only return to that, eh? Was it really that golden? Let's face it, families of any era are both good and bad. We're big on dysfunctional now. No friggin' family is perfect and most have serious problems. It's John Waters not Ozzie and Harriet Nelson or Leave It To Beaver and Butthead. Romantics and simplistic sentimentality have no place here. The pathological family is not something to be fixed and cured, as therapists like to say. It is the family events that have affected us deeply that need some reflection. The soul enters life through cracks in the smoothly functioning fantasy family. The family is a microcosm of society and also recapitulates the mythic origin of humanity by being close to the earth. Families filled with ordinary human foibles soiled by Dys-Dis (mythical underworld). If we whitewash it and don't connect with this mystery, we lose the soulfulness that family has to offer us. Family is most truly family in its complexity, its failures, weaknesses, beauty, horror. Facade of happy, so normal vs. behind-the-scenes craziness and abuse. TV sit-coms of sweet successful families followed by the news at 11. Did he really stab her 38 times with a butcher's knife that he had just used to carve the turkey? I recall an aunt saying that she was going to throw herself in the river. She never did of course, but the dramatic threat was intensified by running screaming through streets in the direction of the river. I remember my father crying in a contorted almost fetal postion on the couch crying in relief after the histrionics had ended for the day. Then, all was well again. I also remember my uncle at a wedding reception in this same aunt's backyard in summer. He was happily drunk and had removed his shirt. He liked beer a lot and there was plenty of canvas. The comic Ruth Buzzi then drew a face on his bare chest with magic marker. You know where the two eyes were. He loved it as did she and we all laughed from our bellies. A gambler uncle at a crap game in White Rock told of a band of masked men who raided the place and took the cash along with all the men's pants.

Family is to individual as origins of human life is to human race. The family history provides a matrix of images that saturate an individual all through adult life. People are too damned literal. Family stories and character can be transformed into myth through repeated tellings. The true story tellers are few and far between. We are all the poorer for it. By not honoring our stories and running away from the dark side, we feel trapped by seemingly inescapable family bullshit. Whether we know it or not, our ideas about the family are rooted in the ways we imagine the family.

Father, Da, Dad, Daddy, Papa

"We are all looking for a Father", said a poet once. The personal father has a lot to do with how we father our own soul. Today we have replaced secret wisdom with information. Information doesn't evoke fatherhood and initiation. It evokes power and control. What helps author our own lives? Becoming intimately acquainted with one's own life and casting out upon its waters are a good start. In part, we are always on the sea. It's then we see that reason, ideology and opinion are not all they are cracked up to be. The sea is fate, unknown and unexpected.

Mother, Mama, Mom, Mommy...

"O Singer of Persephone!

In the dim meadows desolate

Dost thou remember Sicily?"

Oscar Wilde  "Theocritis: a Villanelle

Mother, the word itself is very powerful. The Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone told of a mythic family so highly revered it was ritualized in the Eleusinian mysteries. Sometimes one discovers soul and the underworld against one's will. That pesky will to power, where there is no love. The dark depths are always alluring. Ask any Goth, alcoholic or drug addict. You might get lucky and find a Goth who is an alcoholic and a drunk. Saves time. Narcissistic lures vs. familiar wholesome values. Affectionate caring and bitter emotional pain. Madonna and mater dolorosa. We are drawn to the very experiences that will spoil our innocence, transform our lives and give us depth and character. What the hell are we doing here if this wasn't so? Rather than endure these potentially transformative phenomena, people go shopping or take another hit of St. John's Wort. For all you Martini drinkers, here's where the pomegranate comes in. In the Greek myth, mother Demeter goes from mortal nanny to revered goddess and asks that a temple be built to her. In her sorrow for her lost daughter, she also refuses the fields to bear fruit. This is serious stuff, since you know what happens if we get no fruit. No more martinis. Zeus arbitrates with Hades through Hermes about Demeter's daughter, Persephone. Hades relents and sends the daughter back to her mother, but not before putting a pomegranate seed in her mouth ensuring that Persephone must spend one-third of her life with him and the rest with her mother. Interesting that we sleep one third of lives more or less. A close death just occurred two weeks ago. We have never bought pomegranates this often up until a few weeks ago. I have been juicing them for Kathy to make vodka martinis. I made one last night. I name each one differently. The next one will be called the Demeter or Persephone-Kore martini. The myth can be a meditation on death itself, one's own brush with death or the death of someone close. The profound maternal affirmation of life allows such deaths to affect us, wonder at the mysteries of the underworld and send us back into life transformed. The pomegranate seed is the seed of life-from-death. The fruit looks sunny deep red on the outside and yet has a vast interior of dark black Hades seeds (arils, I've since from POM). Hermes, the quicksilver messenger/ arbitrator, is vital for our ability to see through ("Hermeneutics" the art of reading our experiences for their poetry) our self-destructiveness, depression, flirtation with danger, addictions. Initiation, death, survival, resurrection. Just a few weeks ago we had the pleasure of meeting some fine people at Barbone for dinner. Subsequent to that there was a passing mention of this myth and Zoloft. At that time, I did not know of the tragic death of a person close to one of the persons we met at Barbone and of the imminent death of my aunt.

The Child is Father of the Man

A poet wrote : "The words are wild".

For Christians, there's no better time of the year to write about the child born under lowly conditions exposed to fate. However, mythology from many cultures contains this motif. The Christians do not have eminent domain. Childhood and children have undergone some significant changes, not all good and healthy. We now see children in high heels and makeup, on anti-depressants, in porn and on and on. The child is a dual symbol of power and weakness. Revered to the point of nausea and abused horrendously. Something's wrong with our images of the child or how we perceive those images. Grow up already! You are acting very immature. The inferior child, as something to be rid of or grow out of. Small, inadequate, unknowing, the child contains something of soulful import. The more we deny it, the more childishness we betray. Our society finds it difficult to accept the exuberant spontaneous joy of childhood. We pay lip service to the child, but this country ranks low on the list of how well nations take care of their children. The year of the child, childcare, advanced childcare, afterschool care, pre-teen groups... Progress says that we are more intelligent and developed than our ancestors. In turn, adults are more intelligent than children. Our values are infected with this denigration of the humility of childhood.

"Primitive man is no puzzle to himself. The question "What is man?" is the question that man has always kept until last. Primitive man has so much psyche outside his conscious mind that the experience of something psychic outside him is far more familiar to him than to us. Consciousness hedged about by psychic powers, sustained or threatened or deluded by them, is the age-old experience of mankind. This experience has been projected itself into the archetype of the child, which expresses man's wholeness. The 'child' is all that is abandoned and exposed and at the same time divinely powerful; the insignificant, dubious beginning, and the triumphal end. The 'eternal child' in man is an indescribable experience, an incongruity, a handicap, a divine prerogative; an imponderable that determines the ulimate worth or worthlessness of a personality."---CG Jung

Encore, Encore, as the Italians say

Plenty of raw emotion was stirred up in the last week. At best, I find it difficult to describe. It's all there waiting to be unleashed. It really never goes away since there are certain psychic laws that must be adhered to. It sort of like, or exactly like, the energy in the universe. There is transformation of it, but it never completely disappears. I mean you can try to buck those laws, but I would not recommend it. In the end you will pay dearly. The veneer of human civilization is very thin. Right under that veneer runs psychic energy that can be very destructive if released unchecked. One doesn't have to look far for some horrendous examples in the last 70 years. It is all in the individual. Nothing can be done or changed without with the individual. The horrific events of history didn't just happen will-nilly out of the blue. All of the wars and genocides were the result of individual actions. There is no software program running in the background directing the actions of mankind. I believe that there is some kind of accumulation of unresolved conflict within the psyche that is carried from generation to generation. It has been called many things. Karma, the shadow, evil...take your pick.

So, I have to re-source and re-member and look again, not with harsh magnified light, but a light dimmed slightly, at certain thoughts, feelings, emotions, actions, non-actions. These are the issues in life that are never really resolved. We just keep turning them over, tumbling them like stones or jewels.

Ennui, weariness, sorrow, chaos, laughter, joy, love, red wine, music (zouk, beguine, cadence, jazz, funk, blues, NOLA, mambo, cha cha, bolero, Colombian, SOCA, dub, reggae, Celtic, Brasilian et al), trickster pranks, depression, expression, drugs, underworld, death, insomnia, imagination, poets, animals, nature, stasis, balance, poise, revulsion, dignity, quintessence, nuance, gentleness, tenderness, truth, shame, sham, lies, nothing, everything...and red wine. A few of my favorite things.

"Watch the dance", I was told once in a dream long ago.

Joyce wrote of the "treasures of the palaces of the heart".

Keith Reed of Procol Harum wrote:

"Let him who fears his heart alone 
stand up and make a speech
For him perhaps an emperor's throne
if he could only speak
Far too few and far to follow
For shame I'll heed the cry

Be with me when I need a drink
be with me when I die"

Speaking of drinking, last night we had Planeta's 2004 Merlot. Good balance for such a big wine with a fine nose of raspberry and herbs. Three years have rounded the tannins smoothly. I don't find any mention of Tre Bicchieri any where on the web, though the store was touting this. The Italian wine guide Gambero Rosso awards three glasses to what it considers the best wines of the year. I would like three more glasses of it myself.

I know. I jump around a lot. This is the way it is now. I don't have ADS, but it seems like it, non?

Pizza and Wine

My aunt Celena has passed. We gave tribute to her partyloving-soul by making pizza and drinking some good red wine. The weight has been somewhat lifted by a heartfelt apology from my cousin Anthony. I will try to write more tomorrow. Death of a loved one creates tremors in the psyche that arouse images covered with the dust of aeons.

Thanks For The Memories

"You have noticed that the truth comes into this world with two faces. One is sad with suffering, and the other laughs; but it is the same face, laughing or weeping."

--John G. Neihardt, "Black Elk Speaks"

"Admit the void; accept loss forever. Not to admit the void is the trouble with those schizophrenics who treat words as real things. Schizophrenic literalism equates symbol and original object so as to retain the original object, to avoid object-loss. Freedom in the use of symbolism comes from the capacity to experience loss. Wisdom is mourning; blessed are they that mourn."

--Norman O. Brown  "Love's Body"

"One must be natural and easy,

Take the happy with the sad,

Feel as one who looks,

think as one who walks,

And, when it's time die, remember the day dies too,

And the sunset is beautiful, and beautiful too the enduring night...

That's how it is, and so be it..."

--Fernando Pessoa

"Each illness is a musical problem---the healing is a musical solution. The shorter and more complete the solution---the greater the musical talent of the physician."

--Novalis  "Pollen and Fragments"

"There are sicknesses worse than sicknesses,

There are pains that do not ache, not even in the soul,

Yet are more painful than all the others.

There are anxieties dreamed of more real

Than those real life brings us, sensations

Felt only by imagining them,

More our own than life itself.

So many things exist without existing,

Exist, and linger on and on,

And on and on belong to us, and are us...

Over the turbid green of the wide-spreading river

The white circumflexes of the gulls...

Over and above the soul, the useless fluttering

Of what never was, nor ever can be, and that's all.

Let me have more wine, life is nothing.

Note

My soul came apart like an empty jar.

It fell overwhelmingly, down the stairs.

Dropped from the hands of a careless maid.

It fell. Smashed into more pieces than there was china in the jar."

--Fernando Pessoa

As The World Turns, So Does The Worm (Redacted)

(left to right: Anthony Perrone, moi, Charlie Marsh, Christmas Eve early 80's B.L.)

I have accepted my cousin Anthony's apology that he sent me via e-mail, though a telephone call would have been more personal. The sorrow and hurt broke him and he unwisely let loose on me. I said not a word in reply. After long deliberation, I retaliated with words. Just words, right? I am a chicchierone, a big mouth. This is why my Mafia application was rejected. However, I told the truth. I told no lies. I stopped lying many years ago, to others and myself. At his request and for the sake of my aunt Celena's soul, I deleted the post that spoke about him, his spouse and sister in a less than favorable light. They knew what I had posted was true and couldn't bear to have it made public. But, I am not afraid to look any one in the eye, especially now with Lasik surgery. I will let it stand there. Niente!

Long ago at the darkest hour before the light, something awakened within me. I needed to heed my soul's call for authenticity. It hasn't been all cabaret and rose gardens, but I have seen, heard and felt beauty in the soul of the world. People who have not experienced this think it is all dramatic ego and staging. So much stronzata or cazzata. Enough is enough is enough. People either come together in some modicum of understanding and move on with the life or go their own separate ways and move on.

P.S. My aunt Celena's maiden name was Chiaradio. In Italian the words mean "bright ray". Chiaroscuro is cognate. The truth was/is revealed to prophets, mystics and seers through light and the word. The objects of worship of the Hindus were devas, cognate with the Latin deus (god) derived from the old Sanskrit div, meaning brightness. I guess the bright ray has been dimmed almost to extinction by ignorance and greed along the way.  And by the way, my aunt Celena's mother's maiden name was Angelina Perrone, my grandmother. If you're confused, it's all right and it's all good.

Death At A Funeral, Last Rites... and Wrongs

"If the old were not ripe for death, nothing new would appear; and if the old were not blocking the way for the new, it could not and need not be rooted out."-- CG Jung

On Sunday before my aunt Celena's wake, I drove into Pawcatuck, CT along River Road. As I neared my destination that was coincidentally close to where my mother slaved in a factory for many years, a beautiful longish haired black cat crossed in front of my car. It was an omen. I'm not always out there looking for signs and omens, but this was one. I knew it just as I knew that the $90 hit on the slots at Foxwoods a few minutes earlier was. I was headed out da' door after losing $20 on the dollar machines. Something drew me to a machine, the compulsive gambler in me no doubt, and I won $90, cashed and left. My Aunt Celena was the impetus for going to the Rainmaker Casino in the first place. She was a big gambler who had some luck and knew when to quit. I had to play a few slots in her memory. She had many friends so there were lots of people at the wake. The air was not morbidly charged, as are most funerals in my family. As usual, you get to see and talk to people who you haven't seen in 30 years. Maybe it's the son or daughter of people you knew as a child. You remember their father or mother and then you feel the emotional connection and common personality traits that they share with their parents. Someone's raspy voice, a smile, their eyes, or great sense of humor. It all comes back. My 95 year old Uncle Cosmo, brother to my Aunt Celena, was relating a story about someone's father to a daughter of said father. The woman, who is maybe half his age, insisted that her father never worked at a certain location. My Uncle Cosmo, with his Wild-Bill-Hickok long white hair, smiled and held his ground. After a while the woman looked at him and said: "You know, you're right! He did work there." I remarked to her that he's 95 and has it going better that some 30 somethings I know. (He then spoke to me of voluptuous women that he had known who had great tits and asses. He then suddenly said "I gotta shit!". Think Uncle Alfie played by Peter Vaughan) Then I made the grave (intended) mistake of saying say hello to my cousin Oscar Wilde and his miserable father who barely grunted, his enormous buddha-belly billlowing out. Then Oscar suggested we go get some water and I agreed. We made some small talk and then he started to withdraw from me into the deserted room. I said: "What do you think I have a contagious disease? Why are you backing up?" He then dropped this ditty on me: "Don't tell me that there was money discussed about Aunt Celena's burial plot. I know you didn't pay a cent for it. If there was any mention of money-money-money, I would call it/you the most despicable thing ever and will never speak to you again." Back to the pre-plot about the plot. My Aunt Celena was dying and everyone knew it. This whole fiasco could have been avoided had her son and daughters approached me a lot earlier. It all could have taken care of months ago, discretely. Her son called me from her home after she was found dead. I first offered to give the plot away. I could have said NO period, but didn't. As stated before, my Aunt had no place to be buried. I then remembered that I just had Lasik surgery and we are pensioners who have hefty home equity payments. I also remembered that the price of just about everything is going up. Money ain't getting any cheaper. I felt somewhat mercenary, but my four cousins in question are all doing quite well. It would be $200 per person if they split it. If the family was destitute, then I would have given them the plot. I asked my cousin A. what the price of a plot would be today and he relayed the answer from the funeral home director: $1,175. Back at the wake, I looked my cousin Oscar in the eye and told him that it was none of his damned business and that if I had his bank account I could afford to give the plot away. He scoffed at this. This came from someone who had just sold his home in ghetto Stonington, CT for $560,000 on June 29, 2007. He then bought prime real estate in tony Mystic CT with rental property to boot next door that now houses a jewelry boutique. (Fact: When New Orleans flooded, I asked Oscar if he had donated anything. He said no because he wanted to make sure that the money would go directly to someone in need. I know he never donated a dime. I'm am not bragging, but I did donate $300 to six different organizations.) I said fine, no more speak and walked out the door. Death does bring out the best in human beings.

My cousin Oscar just telephoned me as I write this funeral saga-dirge. He just received my e-mail in which I called him a complete asshole for his timing and endearing choice of language. I also told him that I had previously thought he was fucked up, but I know now that he is truly deeply disturbed. He claims in his own compassionate way that he was telling me that my name was merde (shit) because of my mercenary money-sucking soul and I still had time to rectify my sanctimonius image with relatives of dubious character. He doesn't realize that the people in my loving famiglia who are telling him this are precisely the people in my family that I don't give a shit about. I don't speak to them and vice versa. Luckily, there were cousins and in-laws that supported me. The other hate mongers are just looking for another excuse to ridicule someone and temporarily escape from their death-in-life trap. They have nothing better to do. This is what they are made up of. Someone once said that the family is a crucible out of which one's character is formed. Tis true.

Wait..there's more, but first there's "For the Love of Money". After the wake, my cousin Diane, my Aunt Celena's oldest and most compassionate daughter, had tons of food at her home only a few blocks from the funeral home. This is the neighborhood where I grew up so I walked the streets for a while after the great time I had at the wake. As I walked the quiet streets I looked at certain homes and remembered: The Bensons, The Elmos, The Toscanos. I then stopped at my Uncle Cosmo's and related the uplifting events that just had occurred. I had to tell someone and didn't want to do that at my cousin's home. I then made my way to my cousin's home for the after wake. I had made two tortillas Espanola that I brought, along with a couple of bottles of wine. I should have opened one of the bottles of red on the street and drank a good part of it, but I waited. I didn't want to walk in with wine dripping down my chin and stains on my coat. I didn't waste much time when I got into the house though. I talked with my cousin Peter first. He's happy go lucky and was a good antidote to the wake histrionics. All he wanted to do was drink and I was down with that. I met up later with Mark Spano, an Emerson College graduate and his graciously elegant spouse Kim, an Irish colleen and graduate of Bates College and Columbia University. We talked food as they dug into my tortilla. They were both genuinely warm and I learned later that Mark had lost his mother when she was only 47. My mother was only 58. My cousin Lisa and her husband Bob are also always good to talk with. They are real and straight up good people. As it turns out, Lisa is also not very fond of our cousin Oscar. I forgot to say that Oscar at 50 is one of the most accomplished hypochondriacs in the family and has been honing his art for many years. Think of the paranoid character in the movie (remember the post title? I know it was a long time ago but bear with me for another 5 hours of reading) who helps Uncle Alfie find a terlet to take his shit and some of the shit gets on him and he freaks. He's the guy always concerned with germs and complains about every part of his body continually. So, Lisa and I talked for sometime as we have always hit it off. She was a beautiful breath of fresh air with a frankness that I like. My best conversation was with Charlie M., my cousin Diane's long time soul mate. Charlie explains things very clearly and is precise in his language. He too holds forth with a great sense of humor and likes red wine. At one point, he told me that the most difficult thing in life for him has been to suspend judgement of people. I have yet to learn this piece of wisdom. To learn this suspension and balance is not easy, but it lets the other person be him/her self in ways that would not otherwise appear to one's consciousness. We all judge, but to temper the judgement with intuition and feeling is a higher level of consciousness. Charlie talked of my Aunt Celena's total identification with her body and her inability to detach herself from its decay. He longed to try to speak to her about it, but knew could not. We talked in his work shed that is heated by a large wood stove that had yet to start throwing heat in the cold November air. My cousin X kept nervously strolling in and out of the shed, drinking copious amounts of Seagrams VO. I enjoyed the talk with Charlie very much. It was soothing and another oasis of sanity amidst the chaotic emotions floating around. My cousin X was my Aunt Celena's first born and produced her first and only grandchild. He is numbing himself very strongly, maybe a little too strongly. He has always been good drinker and pill popper. I had never seen him quite this bad though. He seemed to be taking it the worst. His mother was a good friend and a mother. He reportedly took a picture of himself with his mother in the casket in the background. This is not to say that I didn't drink vast amounts of red wine and eat my ass off too. After all, you do celebrate the person's life and soul. After the funeral, everyone gathered at Venice, an overpriced mediocre eatery, but with fine views of the Atlantic. A dixieland quartet of older men played in the bar. One guy simultaneously played bass, the high-hat and sang! Later Greg Mazel, an accomplished reed player from Providence, blew some great soprano sax accompanied by the piano player. I remember Greg playing one of Bach's Cantata's on sax in church at my cousin X's wedding in 1984. Something I will always remember. I had the pleasure of meeting Greg's mother who remarked that music keeps one young, as she urged her son to up the tempo, while my cousin A. was saying the opposite to Greg. I must also mention the generosity of J.C., the head chef at Go Fish in Mystic, CT and husband of my extremely personable and aptly named cousin Y, who provided us with 30 oysters to take back home. Ten each of Peconic, Canada Caps and Purple Points. I prepared them using an adapted version of Drago's recipe in NOLA. Joe, thank you for some of the freshest delicious oysters we've ever had. Tonight we'll do up the Purple Points the same way. Joe, I owe you a good bottle of wine.

The world keeps spinning and the sun rises on a new day, but there was an awfully large time warp filled with lots of raw emotion, re-membering, tears, kind smiles, hugs and handshakes.

Spoiler for "Death At A Funeral": The movie is a lot funnier.

Remembering My Aunt Celena

My favorite Aunt Celena (far left, moi, my mother, my cousin Anthony and my Aunt Rose) died this morning at her home in Westerly, RI. She was 83 and a long time smoker of the longest cigarettes made, scotch drinker and gambler. The proximity of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun brought her renewed life in her later years. Like Lourdes. She knew how to enjoy herself and was quite outspoken and frank. She used to bring me and other cousins out to her beach house at Atlantic Beach or at her pool on East Avenue. Both of her houses were washed away during Hurricane Carol in 1954. I can still picture one of them tossed intact across a salt pond perched on the opposite shore. I always looked forward to this treat, not only to escape my crusty grandmother, but also because of the fun and good eats. Her son and my cousin Anthony and I were close growing up. I was an only spoiled child and he was a brother to me. My aunt Celena had a great sense of humor and was pretty hip, unlike many others in my family. Maybe it had something to do with being away from the family in Bermuda for a number of years. Even after she was dumped and screwed financially by her despicable husband, she retained her joie de vivre. For a number of years she was forced to work in a department store to pay the bills while her former husband drank expensive booze and drove big cars. She almost never complained about her ailments, unlike some other hypochondriacs in my family. I remember some very good drunken times at her home in Westerly. She loved to dance barefoot and was into da' funk and disco. We would all get a little crazy and burn down da' house. I have good memories of her laughter and sly sense of humor. We were playing Trivial Pursuit once and her question was "What fuel is made from fossils?" She answered "pewter!". That still gives us a laugh. One of her daughters was competitive about playing, but we had a ball making up shit. She was famous for her escabeche of eggplant, a vinegar-oil-garlic-red pepper spiced concoction that went very well with toasted Italian bread. If she had been younger she could have gone on late night TV with it. It was that good. She also was a prodigious baker. She could turn out hundreds of cookies for the holidays or special occasions in the hottest weather, sana a/c. I will miss her laughter. It was infectious. She will be laid to rest this Monday next to my mother. Now my family can't bother me about disinterring my father and having him re-buried next to my mother. My father made no provision in his will where he wanted to be buried even though he had a plot next to my mother in Westerly, RI. So his deceptive, manipulative second wife buried him in New London, CT. My favorite Uncle and Godfather George died in 1981. He and my Aunt Celena were close. They both knew how to have a good time.

 

Vision

I had Lasik surgery on Thursday. I haven't seen colors and shapes like those since the 1960's. It's pretty amazing what laser technology can do, both good and bad. Besides the obvious clarification of street signs, dash board read outs and all the other led's in daily life, grapes still clinging to our vines, colors and textures of fallen leaves, there's another sight that I wasn't prepared for-- people's faces and the telling detail revealed. Today I saw a long legged still attractive 40ish woman with whom I used to work some 10-15 years ago. She was taking her son to buy shoes. She's somewhat younger than I, but the lines on her face seemed somehow incongruous. She still walks in a willowy way and retains that look-at-me-look.  One can read much more in a visage when one's eyesight has improved significantly. It is, afterall, the mask and mirror of the soul. I can stare a little now because of the shades, but those come off after the weekend. It's been November gray up in the great Northeast and having to wear shades only intensifies it.

So while I pondered how the hell to pay for this double-edged privilege of renewed vision (answer plastic), I read Tim's Nameless Blog about the shattered lives of those washed away when the Federally built levees buckled over two years ago. I could have lost much more than perfect vision if I lived in certain parts of NOLA.

This my cousin, Anthony, last June in his back yard preparing the fire so I could grill up a pork tenderloin with chipotle mayo. If you look closely, you'll see that he has a NOLA Jazz Fest T on. He used to wait and play trumpet on the Delta Queen. He lived on Prytania St. for a while in the 70's. That Fez is the real thing. I've been trying to get it from him. 

Full Moon in Pisces

Since my sun sign is Pisces, the full moon on the 28th is important. I don't look at astrological charts very often. I found the link through iGoogle. However, I do believe that a wine grown in a particular place on the earth and harvested at a certain time will determine that wine's unique character. Astrology claims no more than this. It's not all occult cosmic smoke and mirrors.

"It Was 40 Years Ago Today That Sgt. Pepper Taught the Band To Play"

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released on June 1, 1967. (FWIW Carl Jung, who is in between W.C. Fields and Edgar Allen Poe on the cover, supposedly said: "I would like to be remembered as a good lover.") It was June 1967, classes had just ended at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and I had just finished my sophomore year. I was now a psychology major in a technological bastion. It might have been quantum mechanics, differential equations or EE that tilted the pinball machine for me. Of course, the drugs helped. This was just before I started to take psychedelics in massive quantities. There were people I knew who used to keep acid in ice water cleverly disguised in milk jugs. Some of those people were last seen convinced that they had turned into spotted crustaceans with the voice of Boris Karloff. What intrigued me at the time was the Sgt. Pepper LP that I had just bought and the fact that I was going to San Francisco, um, I mean Stanford University, in July courtesy of the sacred Polytechnic Institute. It was just prior to Haight-Ashbury jumping the shark. Later that summer, before I went to Stanford to ostensibly study the interface between technology and the humanities, I caught The Doors in a small club in NYC. It was the type of venue where you could still talk to the musicians. I was primed to go.

When I arrived at Stanford, I was pleased to find out that my dorm mate had canceled, so I was solo. Spoiler: the culmination of the course at Stanford was our team's design of, yes it's true, an efficient showerhead. Among the reading given us at Stanford was the book "Science and Human Values" by Jacob Bronowski. One psychology professor had us to his hip home high in the hills of Palo Alto. We discussed the book and our feelings about what was happening at the time. He made a point of saying to us all that we should not miss what was happening in Haight-Ashbury. Also while at Stanford, I came across a people handing out fliers for the Free University at Stanford (FUPA). For $10, one could partake of lectures and dialogue about the yeast and such in the air at weekly designated homes. The first one I went to was headed by a very articulate anti-intellectual from NYC. His glasses were thick and so was the atmosphere. There were many fine looking women listening. My interest was definitely piqued especially since this strange looking guy was surrounded by beautiful women . I went back the following week for the next seminar and found the house burned to the ground. An omen, no doubt.

Now mind you, there were part-time policemen and other people in our group (read straight as an arrow) at Stanford who were not in the least interested in Jimi Hendrix, The Electric Flag, The Diggers and all the goings on in the Haight. I wasn't really prepared for the circus of Haight-Ashbury, which at that time was at its zenith. The murders, Monterey and the criminalization of LSD followed within months. How could anyone from small town America be prepared for this scene? It was teeming with young people from all over America who had come for the music, l-o-v-e, creativity, freedom, sex, drugs, friends, psychedelic spirituality, to escape the vacuum of suburban lawns and fantastic plastic. It was sort of the underbelly of LBJ's Great Society. Unprecendented yes, but it was also much more than all that combined, as I have learned for the past 40 some years.

 

Insurance Fraud

Just the other day I called State Farm for a quote on insurance for our home and autos. Their quote was just about the same as what we're paying now. It was a good thing that I didn't make the jump to State Farm. I'm sure many people on the Gulf coast regret their decision, but this might give them some hope.

Black Hole

For those that read my blather, posting will resume shortly. Between the viral bug that has been plaguing so many people this winter-spring and a delirious manic desire to paint walls and polyurethane doors, I feel that I've almost been engulfed by a black hole. I almost forgot to mention March Madness. More music soon too. Stay tuned.

Today is Your Birthday!

This card was given to me by my spouse for my birthday. The inside says "If you wear your pants high enough, you don't need a shirt." She seems to find the best cards.

The Pope and the Tomatoes

I like Sicilian tuna packed in olive oil. It's one of my vices. I know that the tuna that come into the Mediterranean are being hunted into extinction. The Japanese prize the belly, the ventresca, and pay outrageous money for the meat to appear on menus at the best sushi bars. I order 6 bottles once in a while as a treat from San Marzano Imports. I have never tried their (actually Rafaele Viscardi's tomatoes) canned tomatoes that reportedly were sent to the Pope in 2004 in honor of the San Marzano DOP, the tomato counterpart to DOC wines. I convinced Nick, the owner of San Marzano Imports, to send me a case of these prized tomatoes along with the tuna. The minimum order is supposed to be two cases. But hey, I'm Sicilian so... As Nick is writing down my order, I say to him: "If these tomatoes are good enough for the Pope, then I guess they're good enough for me." Nick replies: "That's right. We sent them to the Pope a few years ago. You might have read about it. We tell people that our tomatoes are the ones that killed him!" I laughed so hard that I began choking to death. Bronchitis or whatever the hell I have helps with the extreme choking. Nick and I laughed for while. When I could talk again, I said to Nick: "So, when we make pizza or pasta, we can tell people that they're eating the tomatoes that killed the Pope!" Thinking back on a trip we made to Italy many years ago, we drove from Rome through the San Marzano valley's haze to Amalfi. The San Marzano valley is blessed with very fertile soil thanks to Mount Vesuvius. It is also one of the most densely populated areas in Europe. Heavy industrial plants make it also one of the most polluted places in Europe. That's what must provide the distinctive full flavor. The Pope did live a long time. I think he enjoyed those tomatoes even though they might have killed him.

 

Musica En Verite

"The limits of my language are the limits of my world." So saith a famous linguist. The limits of my spoken-typed language does limit my expression of the world as I experience it. Hopefully, I have been able to convey something sometimes remotely intelligible to my readers. Dear dedicated readers of my fluff, you will hear more music in your ears from now on, I promise. This doesn't mean that I won't go off on something or someone every now and then, especially New Orleans. I'll try to give you some of the best music that was given to me as one of the most precious gifts in my thus far illustrious-fantabulous life.

I'm going with www.audioblog.com aka hipcast to start. What I'd really like is a 3 hour slot doing Internet radio. Anyone reading with bandwidth and venture $? I'll have to work hard on this. The music that I will be playing are African, Caribbean (very little Reggae since I don't know it well enough) including Cuban Classic Big Band and semi-contemporary, Puerto Rican, SOCA, and cadence and zouk from Guadeloupe-Martinique, Brasilian, Honduran, Haitian et al. I also will play music that passed through and was infused with the spirit of New Orleans. This musical matrix is in itself enough for a few thousand or million lifetimes. Sidney Bechet called it the "remembering song...there's so much to re-member." This what made Ashley feel a little bit better. That link resulted in unheard of hits to my little blog. So, with a nod to the Professor and another to Gene Scaramuzzo of Covington and DJ Beto from Guinea Bissau via NJ, music will do more of the talking here. Hear the long snake groan. Like Stevie Wonder said on his latest "We're goin' to get it!"

It's Back

A while back, a photographer from Pawcatuck, CT e-mailed me about the Mystic Horns, a swing group that my cousin plays trumpet in. We started typing about the people that we knew or were related to in the adjoining towns of Pawcatuck, CT and Westerly, RI. Everyone one is related. They're small towns. However, since the advent of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun mega-gambling resorts, things have changed dramatically for better or worse. More jobs, more wagering and less of the old time New England beach resort feeling. I used to drive Route 2 from Westerly to Hartford, CT when I was attending RPI in Troy, NY. The area that is now Foxwoods was all country farms. Then one summer afternoon, I drove back to Albany via Route 2. At one point on the horizon loomed a huge blue-green & gold mirage that was Foxwoods. BTW, green was the color selected by an elder of the tribe. She died a few years ago. It was the first time that I saw its immensity. The Mashantucket Pequots had a little redress. This is it. They continue to expand. MGM is supposedly brokering a deal for another mammoth casino there.

Nancy takes great photos and is now taking a photography course at RISD. (aside, Talking Heads formed here and I saw The Velvet Underground here live ) The photo above is of something that she brought home from Texas. It's in her diningroom. BTW, she loves New Orleans.

Get Your Ticket In Your Hand...

Aldo's got his ticket in his... mouth. Is it to the NFC title game or to see the Zulu Queen?

In Memory of Billy D.

Some 20 years ago, I met Billy D. while working for the fantabulous NY State Dept of Social Services. We worked in the employment unit, where the bosses didn't seem aware that we supposed to be helping the counties help poor people gain employment. They were more interested in making your papercratic life more miserable. Any way, Billy D. was working in the unit when I stupidly asked to be transferred there. Billy had a round dark face with a thin head of closely cropped black hair. He was a portly Sicilian with a big smile. Billy would quietly show up at my desk with a quarter stuck to his forehead. Or he would paperclip one of those dreaded red "immediate attention" notes to his zipper and walk around the office. My favorite Billy D. stunt was on the elevator. We would board a crowded elevator and after the door closed Billy would ask me loudly: "So, how is that woman that you ran over last week? I heard that she had a broken leg and arm." After a short silence and everyone in the elevator stiffening a bit, I would reply, "Oh, she's coming along quite well. She'll be out in a few months." This then became ritual with us. I would some times be the asker and he the one who ran someone over or who clubbed someone in a bar fight. Billy had an infectious laugh. He also had a bad temper and drank and smoked heavily. He must have had a dozen stents and all sorts of bypasses for his heart. He retired and moved to Florida. I just learned before Christmas that he died last year. I think he made it to 70 something, a miracle.

Doggie Day & Night Care

From pre-Thanksgiving through New Year's Day, we were blessed with three small dogs to care for. The first was Frankie "My Way" Sinatra, a deformed toy poodle. He followed K. around like she was the mother duck. He took over Aldo's sleeping spot, pissed on the sofa twice and refused to even consider playing with poor Aldo. This dog's torso resembled a small buffet table, flat and wide. A very strange permutation of a spoiled poodle. His owner told us that he would only drink water from a cup. K. tried the cup once and after that said drink from Aldo's bowl or go dry. It worked. He had eating quirks too that K. cleared up pronto. She could be another Cesar Milan, I swear. Frankie is never walked, so it was the Wild Wild West when we took Aldo and him out for a real walk. He was with us 12 days. It was great to see him go. I've blogged about Mad Max in a previous post. Max was with us until December 27th or so. Right when we thought we were out of it, we got drawn back in. Pearl's, a pet day care center, called about a person needing overnite care for a 2 yr. old miniature dachshund named Rocco. Rocco was cute as hell, but he had that kraut-thing up his ass and scared the shit out of Aldo with his teutonic bark. At one point I called Aldo a wuss for not giving it to him once. A little nip, nothing extreme. We had to yell at Rocco when he went off his rocker and started to chase Aldo in the house. Outside was a different story. The confines of a strange house made for more fear and threats. Aldo did manage to barrelhouse Rocco some in the house in the short three days of fencing and tap-dancing. In the meantime, Rocco's recently-divorced real estate-mogul owner was in old Montreal with his new young girl friend. He took her to an old auberge in his BMW to see the fireworks and make some bacon. Back in Dullmar, we were dealing with his crazy kraut dachshund who also shit on Aldo's favorite hemp rug. It's was his way of saying Happy New Year. This is Aldo's battle gear for the next round of dog care. He could be the Target mascot.

Or maybe he could scare the next boarder with this wig:

Christmas 2006

Red wine and chocolate featured big in this year's Christmas presents. I bought K. a bunch of Guylian Belgian dark chocolate bars and wrapped them in a box labeled as creosote logs for the wood stove. Another thing she didn't expect was The Worst of the Jefferson Airplane. She surprised me with an Argiano Tuscan red, a Torbreck Shiraz (Woodcutter) and Le Cigare Volant (The Flying Cigar), a California Rhone-type blend. K. also got me a nifty wine journal that will help me keep track of memorable wines we've had. That's if I'm able to write coherently. Look for an upcoming drunken post mumbling about some of these babies. She also gave me a jazz calendar with vibrant black and white photos by Chuck Stewart. Another surprise and hint she handed me was a gift certificate for dinner at this restaurant.

This is Mad Max, a Maltese that we are caring for while his parents are in Orlando. He's a good keeper and very affectionate. Aldo wants to really romp, but Max isn't game. Max would rather play with me. He does growl at Aldo every now and then. Aldo gives him a what's-up-with- you look. Aldo could wipe the floor with him if he wanted to, but Aldo's not a bully and only wants to play desperately. Yesterday, our next door neighbors came over with Romeo, their Maltese mix. It was mayhem while we exchanged presents. Max almost went out the door. Aldo was going bananas frothing at the mouth from the excitement. Then he spit up.