April 21, 2024
# 1654
James P setting up for a class at George Howell Cafe, 505 Washington St, Boston
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COVER: James Plowman, coffee professional
Obsession-Discipline-Focus
When I am not working as a barista at George Howell, I am usually at home practicing more coffee related practices. I am completely obsessed with everything coffee has to offer. I always feel as though there is always something more to learn. A new technique, a new coffee process I have yet to learn about. A new farm who is producing coffee I might enjoy or at least find interesting. I am never done learning, and I never will be done.
My view of success is:
0% Luck
0% Motivation
0% Talent
100% Discipline
100% Obsession
100% Focus
Espresso latte and dark filtered coffee at Wood St Coffee, Walthamstow.
Bex Walton - File:Piccolo at filter coffee at Wood St Coffee, Walthamstow.jpg, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/bexwalton/51333376222/
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Commentary
Took a three-day, two-night trip to New York City.
Turned out to be a perfect break from routine.
Ever think how lucky we are to afford days off from work?
To have money to spend on such lush entertainment?
I Love New York logo
Milton Glaser - Extracted from http://www.iloveny.com/gtc/GTC_Sponsorship_and_Contract.pdf
Commentary II
So many of Donald Trump’s photographs these days show him looking tired.
So many moments when Trump forgets the names of public figures.
The grind of the days in court are wearing on him.
He fell asleep during one session.
Meanwhile, the polls are trending against him.
How much can one person absorb?
And is he putting on an unhealthy poundage?
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Kat’s Gen Z Corner
Gen Z Jobs and Favorite Dessert
Does yours give you satisfaction?
If you need a lift, try this easy and perfect dessert
So good and so easy
My favorite easy dessert
This is the easiest healthy dessert recipe that I always have in my fridge.
All you do is mix the ingredients in a bowl, chill, and roll into snack-sized balls. It’s kind of comical how easy it is.
My dad says a 10-step marinara sauce is comically easy. This is my realistic version of that. Plus when dad visited me this weekend, he took some home so you know they were good.
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Tucker’s Corner
I have 2 contributions for this week’s issue and I’m so happy about both!
On the Radio: Rock Music in the early 60’s
The first is the next “episode” of my journey through the development of rock music in the United States. This next segment explores the years 1960 through 1965. Elvis returned from military service and got right back to work producing iconic music. Country and rock music continued to blend thanks to the success of bands like The Everly Brothers. Female artists like Brenda Lee began to make their mark on the genre proving it wasn’t just a boys club.
By 1965 Bob Dylan had gone electric, motown and soul music were dominating the airwaves, surf rock had emerged as a hugely successful subgenre, and most of all the British Invasion had firmly taken hold and the success of Elvis in the previous decade was now being matched by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.
Here’s a link to my playlist that does its best to portray what music sounded like in this five-year period.
My main piece this week though is on a film I’ve been waiting for for quite a while. It’s far from a feel good movie but it’s brilliant and takes a sharp look at the America we’re all living in in 2024. This is Civil War.
Civil War
The filmmaking style of Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is, in many ways, the negative image of Jonathan Glazer’s “The Zone of Interest.” Both films deal with dehumanization and desensitization to the suffering of others, but where Jonathan Glazer’s film does this with absence and restraint, Garland’s assaults the viewer with nauseating intensity. Shaky camerawork enhances the you-are-there feeling of the film’s combat scenes, and every gunshot — and there are a lot of them — is mixed loud enough to make your ears ring.
It’s like an immersive experience of being in a war zone, which establishes a sort of battlefield camaraderie between the audience and the group of journalists who guide us through the Eastern part of the U.S. in the last days of a devastating civil war. The “Western Forces” of Texas and California and the “Florida Alliance” are closing in on Washington, D.C., and despite the confident tone of his daily radio addresses, the president (Nick Offerman) is expected to surrender any day now. The political dimensions of all of this are never explained, and are frankly irrelevant. It doesn’t matter how these states joined together, or why they seceded. What matters is what the ensuing violence has done to Americans as a whole.
In real life, America is growing crueler and more divided by the day, and the social fabric of the country is disintegrating along with its infrastructure. But “Civil War” isn’t a plea for empathy, or even civility. It simply follows this trend to its logical end point, which is a country where militiamen with automatic weapons shoot strangers on sight and torture their old high school classmates in the burned-out shells of abandoned car washes. Everyone who isn’t directly affected by the violence pretends it isn’t happening, in the name of “staying out” of politics — a stance that the film condemns more strongly than any.
As the story begins, veteran photojournalist Lee (Kirsten Dunst) pulls reckless rookie Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) out of the path of a bomb that explodes at a water riot in New York City, killing around a dozen people. Following the deafening blast, the soundtrack goes silent as Lee gets up and starts calmly shooting photos of the bloody bodies on the sidewalk. She can’t be emotionally affected by what she sees, or she can’t do her job. But it’s still unsettling to watch her do it.
Jessie will receive a traumatic education in the life of a war correspondent over the next few days, as she tags along with Lee, her colleague Joel (Wagner Moura), and her mentor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) in their beat-up white press van on what’s technically a road trip — although that term seems a little too pleasant for what’s happening here. They set off on a roundabout route from New York to D.C. that takes them through Pennsylvania and West Virginia and finally down to Charlottesville, Virginia, the front line of a war that’s emboldened white Americans to execute anyone they deem an “other.”
This dynamic plays out in a scene that juxtaposes the warm yellow sunlight and delicate wildflowers of a spring day with a nightmarish tangle of bodies in a mass grave, overseen by a soldier played by Jesse Plemons whose whimsical red plastic sunglasses both contrast with and highlight his casual sadism. The film’s blaring needle drops have a similar effect: Pop music is usually fun, which makes its inclusion here disquieting, because there’s nothing fun about this film. It has some darkly surreal moments, sure. Maybe even a barking, joyless laugh or two. But it’s not fun.
“Civil War’s” lack of a political point of view, as well as its refusal to really identify the positions of its warring parties, has already become the subject of understandable criticism. But does any sane person really want a version of this film that attempts to spell out these people’s politics or, even worse, takes sides in its fictional conflict? I find the lack of “real world” political agenda being included here as maybe Garland’s best idea for this film. It allows us as viewers to focus on what I believe is at the heart of “Civil War”. That heart is in bringing the devastation of war home: Seeing American cities reduced to bombed-out rubble is shocking, which leads to a sobering reminder that this is already what life is like for many around the world. Today, it’s the people of Gaza. Tomorrow, it’ll be someone else. The framework of this movie may be science fiction, but the chaotic, morally bankrupt reality of war isn’t.
For the most part American have had the luxury of sitting on the sidelines throughout the world’s major conflicts. We haven’t had combat in our fields and cities since our actual civil war and I think Garland’s point is maybe we’ve become someone aloof when it comes to caring for other country’s people who don’t share that long stretch of peace. Beyond the plausibility of war in the United States or the tragedy of such an eventuality, it’s about the way we refuse to let images from wars like this get to us. It’s more a call for reflection, an attempt to put us in the shoes of others, than a warning — not an “It Can Happen Here” movie, but a “Here’s What It’s Like” movie. It doesn’t want to make us feel so much as it wants us to ask why we don’t feel anything.
Clams and Mussels Soup, with Cream and Saffron
for Four
Add a cup of water to a large pot [or a wok] and bring to a boil.
Wash 12 little neck clams and add the clams to the pot.
Wash the mussel shells and add the mussels to the pot.
Continue the boil, removing the shellfish as they open and reserve, keeping them in a warm oven [160*)
Add 1 cup dry white wine and
1 cup of dashi or other fish broth.
1 cup of heavy cream
Add:
1 scant teaspoon of saffron
3TB butter
¼ cup of garlic olive oil
½ cup finely chopped fresh chives
Bring the pot to a simmer and cook for 1 minute.
Fill four soup bowls with the shellfish
Pour the broth over the shellfish and serve hot.
Clams and Mussels just before the Saffron Cream Broth is poured over them
Making up the bowls
Does every plate have the same number of shrimp?
Shrimp Cacciatore on Squid Ink Spaghetti
A nice view can add to the enjoyment of the meal
Notice the flying saucer.
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Ralph’s Corner
Click here to read a small collection of Ralph’s work!
Swarthmore: Kat’s alma mater: One of most beautiful college campuses in the world.
Swarthmore College's campus boasts an eclectic collection of modern and Collegiate Gothic-style architecture, but there's one breathtaking element that makes the college stand out: a 425-acre arboretum filled with magnolia trees, hiking trails, and an outdoor theater. Just outside Philadelphia, the college's green oasis draws the attention of students, locals, and horticulturists from across the world. From the 200 varieties of roses making up the Dean Bond Rose Garden outside Parish Hall to the towering trees of Crum Woods, you're greeted with a bountiful display around every turn and corner.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
"I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals. I'm a vegetarian because I hate plants."
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Six Word Stories
“Lost key. Found love. Changed locks.”
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Mail and other Conversation
We love getting mail, email, or texts, including links.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
text to 617.852.7192
This from friend of decades, Joyce G:
I made the Sicilian stuffed peppers from the North End Italian cookbook. Delicious!
Ed. Note: The North End Italian cookbook was written by Dom’s sister, Marguerite Buonopane. It’s the best Italian American cookbook ever to come out of Boston’s North End.
Ed. responded on Apr 10, 2024, at 10:05 AM:
And you didn't end me a sample?
Boo hoo!
Glad to see we're still active; still trying new things.
hope you are doing well.
And Joyce responded:
Still doing my own cooking. The best results are with the old favorites. I have made shrimp scampi and chicken lemone to name just a few. The pages of that cookbook are dog-eared from use - in spite of the fact that I have 28 cookbooks!
This from friend/author, Tim Leland:
Glad to hear you're wrestling those health beasties to the ground, Dom.
-Tim
Ad this from dear friend, Raffaelo I.”
Re: Dom's TEDx Speech
Dominic,
If I had any doubt that what we have to share from growing up in the North is precious and vital to the culture, it ended in watching your talk. You are the magic you are expressing. You had so much empathy for your listeners you were one of them. I only have one problem with you that you are so much more handsome than me, I cannot even lie about it.
There is a Hindu quote I think When I know who I am I am you. When I don’t know who I am I am you.
I have been on the edge of eternity many times, Dom. I want you to know that Nietzsche said a man could stand any how if he has a why. I found my why that I will withstand anything in you.
I treasure our fellowship and our brotherhood.
Forever
Raphael
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Last Comment
I am trying out hemp gummies to help me sleep.
Two nights.
Two excellent sleeping moments.
I hope. I hope.
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