August 27 2023
August 27, 2023
# 1621
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Buy the Book
Amazon: “Do You Believe in Magic?” Anthology of Stories from the North End, Edited by Dom Capossela can be purchased here
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About the cover…
The striking juxtaposition of the title of the book and the honest and frank images detailed in this remarkable portrait captures the essence of authenticity and genuine experiences, the first steps of our profound journey reliving moments from childhood to adulthood.
This arresting, truthful picture beautifully contrasts the old-world respect for ceremony (note the father in shirt and tie, mother’s hair carefully combed, she adorned with earrings) with the Americanization of the children for whom under-shirts are dress enough. The crowded table references a close-knit community where bonds are shared among friends, family, and potential tesori. In this rich neighborhood culture, people look out for one another, bridging the gap between generations.
The book cover portrays the raw and unfiltered realities of life for immigrants. We note the absence of lobster and Prime Rib. We also note the table full of good food. No Chateau Petrus,1966? Plenty of table wine. And didn’t each of us eat off of one of those aluminum-framed Formica tables?
The choice of vernacular beauty over Disney-style Pollyanna for the cover invite us to open the book to enjoy a collection of unadorned illustrations and stories presenting the Italo life-style, unvarnished and immediate. And pure magic.
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Back Cover
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Buy the Book
Amazon.com: Do You Believe In Magic?: A North End Anthology: 9798397627023: Capossela, Dom: Books
Thanks for purchasing the book. It’s a great read. If you enjoy it, please, share your thoughts with us. We will publish them in the magazine. Also, please post your thoughts to Facebook and Twitter. And, while you’re at it, post to Amazon. We are not a major publisher so your review will have a great impact to the sales of the book.
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Commentary
Do You Believe in Magic?
Anthology of Tales of the North End
Edited by Dom Capossela
How did we get the title? Howard Dinin suggested several. I selected “Do You Believe in Magic?” as soon as it was presented. Easy. But the subtitle took an evening. Although we had the concept, I needed to work the phrasing.
Should the subtitle begin with “An?”
“An” suggests that the book is one among several anthologies. But there are no other such anthology available or, to my knowledge, planned in the future.
Without using “an’ suggests that the book is the definitive anthology of tales from the North End, without explicitly implying the existence of other anthologies. Leaving the indefinite article out conveys a sense of uniqueness and significance to the book.
Is “Stories” a better choice than “Tales?”
Using "Tales" suggests a more traditional or folklore-like collection of narratives. It evokes a sense of storytelling rooted in oral traditions or mythical aspects, suitable if the book contains narratives that have a mythical or legendary quality to them, or if you want to capture a sense of nostalgia or heritage.
Opting for "Stories," instead offers a broader and more encompassing term. It can imply a wider range of narrative styles and genres, including fiction, non-fiction, personal anecdotes, or various literary forms. The book does include diverse types of narratives and does aim to appeal to a broad readership. "Stories" is a better fit.
Should we use “from” or “of” the North End?
Since we want to convey that the stories are specifically set in or about the North End, it’s more appropriate to use “from”. This title suggests that the narratives included in your anthology originate from or are inspired by the North End.
Using "Stories of the North End" could be interpreted as stories that simply mention or discuss the North End but may not necessarily be set there.
Should we use “Boston’s North End vs “the North End?”
“Boston’s North End” compares North Ends. Residents of Boston know that references to “The North End” specifically mean Boston’s North End. Using “the North End” reinforces the local connection.
Using "the North End" suggests that the location is a well-known or commonly recognized neighborhood. It evokes a sense of familiarity for readers who are familiar with the North End as a distinct area, residents, for example, or tourists who visit. Our target audience is expected to have prior knowledge or awareness of the North End.
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Kat’s Gen Z Corner
Human Connection
“People can only meet you
as deeply as
they’ve met themselves.”
“People can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.”
I’ve been returning to this line over the course of the summer.
“People can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves.”
The trouble with human connection is that so much is caught in the constraints of the self. Part of a mature and deeply felt life involves tough work to undo our neurosis that can prevent us from living lightly and genuinely connecting with one another and making the world softer than how you experienced it.
For me, therapy, yoga, and meditation help a lot.
But one of my most wild realizations as a young woman is how few people are actually interested in this pursuit. Everyone from my yoga students who can’t sit in savasana for five seconds and the adults that I long admired as a child to the men I work for and the women I used to call best friends.
Many of them are highly intelligent and successful people. Uninterested.
They go about their life with layers and layers of shame and heaviness that result in neurosis that cripple their ability to live fully. Most are too lost in this guck to even realize.
My recent work has been to not care and love them anyways.
Or, more realistically, reassess their presence in my life and be okay with what that looks like.
No one fully succeeds at ridding themselves of their neurosis. But the work is to change them from inhibiting monsters to, as Ram Dass says, “delightful little schmoos.” The neverending effort should be enough.
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Tucker’s Corner
August is an odd time for movie theaters. July is typically the big summer movie month (we saw Barbie and Oppenheimer release on the same day to cement that idea) and movie studios seem to be unsure what to do with the season’s final month. The result is usually a bunch of mediocre (at absolute best) movies being quietly released and seen by few. I wasn’t expecting much from the film I’m writing about this week but I have to say I had a pretty fun time. It won’t blow your hair back but there’s enough craft on display that it deserves some attention. This is The Last Voyage of the Demeter.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter - Directed by André Øvredal
Bram Stoker devoted fewer than 2,000 words to the fate of the Demeter, the vessel Count Dracula sneaks aboard to travel from Transylvania to London. Yet even with that small interlude (it’s a chapter within a chapter) there is an overwhelming sense of paranoia and alarm and because of how well Stoker lands those feelings this small part of the story has endured in reader’s minds for years. Some film versions of the 1897 novel have tried to visualize the vampire’s massacre at sea but never for much more than a short sequence. The Bela Lugosi and Frank Langella films devote a single scene of rain and panic to the chapter. Coppola’s version comes off as an intense fever-dream.
With The Last Voyage of the Demeter André Øvredal, a Norwegian monster movie specialist, makes a meal out of a those few pages. He swaddles a grim creature feature in the trappings of period piece respectability. Demeter mixes high and low culture when it comes to horror much like the British production house Hammer has done time and time again. Ironically Hammer’s own Dracula film starring Christopher Lee as the titular vampire from 1958 completely omits the Demeter sequence. It’s odd to see this kind of film hit theaters at all but August is the February of the summer release schedule and for most films is a dumping ground or a graveyard.
Demeter knows what it’s about. From its title to the opening scene where we see an empty ship wrecked against the rocks of England we may as well have The Divine Comedy’s quote “abandon all hope ye who enter here” tattooed on the inside of our eyelids. Flashing back a few weeks Demeter wastes little time on setup quickly placing us in the midst of thickly accented sailors under the command of Captain Elliot (brilliant stage actor and Game of Thrones alum Liam Cunningham) and his first mate Wojcheck (equally brilliant character actor David Dastmalchian).
The Demeter script has been kicking around Hollywood since the early 90’s and screenwriters Bragi Schut and Zak Olkewicz have used their final credits to add more people to the Demeter’s manifest. The most important of which is a wholly invented protagonist named Clemens (Corey Hawkins). Clemens is a black man and a doctor and both details feel like the writers were working to steer away from the allegorical racism many have taken from Stoker’s novel.
The downward spiral of missing persons and strange goings on is set off by the discovery of a stowaway: a young woman played by Aisling Franciosi (who stars in a film called The Nightingale, easily the most upsetting film I’ve ever seen. Please don’t watch it.) This woman’s village was ransacked by a monster and she warns the crew of what she saw there. Monster is right. Demeter’s Dracula is not dashing or regal. He’s more creature (bat) than man and at times bears resemblance to maybe the most famous depiction of the character on film: Count Orlock from 1922’s Nosferatu. There’s also a fair amount of 1988’s Pumpkinhead in the creature design. Lovely nods to horror history on screen abound.
With the foreknowledge of a doomed crew on a damned vessel, Demeter has more in common with Ridley Scott’s Alien than any previous Dracula adaptation. Øvredal, who made the terrific Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and The Autopsy of Jane Doe knows exactly how much (or little) of his creature to show at any given moment. At times the film leans a little too heavily on CGI to achieve its magic but Øvredal uses the FX to his advantage more than he doesn’t and the result are some very painterly images.
The cast does a fantastic job, and the dialogue has gallows humor elegance. “A boat without rats? Such a thing is against nature.” I had a nagging sense that these people were too broadly stroked but I always remembered that I was watching a B movie. Demeter is pulp by way of Masterpiece Theatre, and it works. It also puts a new idea on the table. Is there more inspiration to be taken from Bram Stoker’s novel? If more filmmakers set out to make a movie with as much commitment as Demeter has I think we’d all be in for some real treats.
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Local Restaurants
At $42.00, Douzo’s Nigiri Chef’s Special is varied, delicious, and a good value.
With a split bottle of decent sake, perhaps my favorite restaurant meal.
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Writing
The book, “Do You Believe in Magic” is complete, as far as writing and editing are concerned. So now will usher the book through the Amazon printing requirements. It might be ready for sale by next week. We are waiting for a test.
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Food
BAKED BEANS
Boston Baked Beans
Ingredients:
1 pound (about 2 cups) dried navy beans (or Great Northern White beans)
1/2 pound salt pork or bacon, cut into pieces (I use a pig’s foot, too)
1 medium onion, chopped
1/3 cup molasses
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon salt (adjust to taste)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (optional)
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger (optional)
Water
Prepare the Beans:
Rinse the dried navy beans thoroughly under cold water.
Stir around with your finger to find and remove any strange bits, like stone.
Place the beans in a large bowl, cover them with water with inches to spare.
Soak overnight.
Prepare the Pork
In a large pot or Dutch oven, cook the salt pork or bacon or pig’s foot over medium heat until it's lightly browned.
You may need to render some fat first before proceeding. For this purpose, I use duck fat.
Saute the onion in the fat
Until it’s translucent and softened, about 5 minutes.
Prepare the Sauce
In a small bowl, combine the molasses, brown sugar, dry mustard, black pepper, salt, ground cloves and ground ginger.
Mix well.
Combine the Ingredients
Add the soaked beans and water to the pot with the sautéed onions and pork/bacon.
Pour the sauce over the beans and stir everything together.
Add enough water to the pot to cover the beans by about an inch.
Bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat.
Bake in the Oven
Preheat the oven to 300°F
Cover the pot and set it in the oven.
Bake for about 4 to 6 hours, checking periodically and adding more water if needed to keep the beans covered.
The beans are done when they are tender and the sauce has thickened.
Brown Top
Remove the lid during the last hour of baking to allow the top to brown slightly.
Once the beans are tender and the sauce is thickened to your liking, remove the pot from the oven.
Let the beans cool slightly before serving.
Serve the beans with cornbread, coleslaw, or other classic sides.
Boston baked beans
Victorgrigas - Own work
Boston Baked Beans in Concord, Mass
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Chuckles and Thoughts
"Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist."
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Six Word Stories
"Forgotten dreams, a fresh canvas awaits.
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Social Life
The activity surrounding the book occupied much of my calendar. We had thirty authors involved, as well as several tech people, all of whom took some level of social contact. Then, of course, we still had the weekly ezine to get out.
Fun.
Bottom line, this summer, packed with friends and peers passed swiftly.
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Travel
Getting ready for seven days in Florence.
Pulled out my carry-on suitcase and large backpack.
It’s a beginning.
Next, I’ll gather all the paperwork I need.
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