March 24, 2024
# 1650
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COVER:
Easter, a central festival in Christianity, commemorates the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the third day after his crucifixion, as narrated in the New Testament of the Bible.
Its significance lies not just in celebrating the foundational event of Christian faith but also in symbolizing hope and renewal.
The date of Easter varies each year, determined by the lunisolar calendar—falling on the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the vernal equinox. This variability leads Easter to fall between March 22 and April 25. In 2024, Easter falls on March 24,
Easter's celebration combines religious observances with cultural traditions, blending church services, such as the vigil of Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday masses, with festive family gatherings. Customs vary worldwide but often include egg decorating, symbolizing new life and resurrection, and the Easter bunny, a folkloric figure associated with delivering sweets and eggs to children.
While deeply rooted in Christian theology, Easter's themes of rebirth and renewal resonate broadly, inviting reflection on growth, new beginnings, and the triumph of life over death. Its observance, therefore, not only reaffirms the core beliefs of Christians but also serves as a time of joy, festivity, and springtime family traditions, bridging diverse cultures and communities.
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Commentary
I am trying to lose 2 lbs by March 23 when I deliver my TEDx talk at Babson College.
My cousin invited me to a Rib Roast at Abe and Louie’s at 6pm on Thursday. Cannot say no to that.
So, as prep for it, between noon on Wednesday to 6pm on Thursday, I hope to eat only this:
Wednesday
2 Tate’s choc chip cookies @ 1pm on Wed
1 cup of genmaicha tea w a 70 calorie biscotti @ 3pm Wed
1 light dinner: Wed @ 5pm, of a 12oz cup of dashi, a celery stalk, an apple, a small portion of lightly buttered popcorn
Thursday
½ sweet roll at Thursday coffee (5am) and a soft-boiled egg
1 light lunch at Thursday noon (repeat the Wed dinner above)
1 cup of genmaicha tea w a 70 calorie biscotti @ 3pm Wed
And I will walk 45 minutes from my apartment to Abe’s.
Weather looks perfect for a 5pm walk
It’s Saturday morning and I’ve stayed on diet, gaining a tiny bit of weight from my meal in Chinatown.
Tonight will be dinner at an excellent Greek restaurant, Kava neo-Taverna.
Sunday I’ll do the same, having a boiled dinner at my dear friend’s home.
Am approaching D-day and it appears my will power has stayed the course and i will reach my weight goal.
In addition, I got my haircut and I have my outfit ready, inc shined shoes. I will get a manicure, maybe even a pedicure.
Most importantly, i have been practicing and getting better. I’ve had truly spectacular help from the Babson College Speech consultants and from my children. Definitely would have been shameful without their input.
Tick tock. Getting close.
Kat’s Corner
Eating vegan
It’s the quiet nudges, and the lack of strictness and shame within my own diet, that are making this new lifestyle shift sustainable.
Will enjoying a meal at Hangawi, one of the best vegan restaurants in NYC.
Eating Vegan
If you can find a yummy vegan restaurant, you really don’t miss the meat. (I say this as a daughter of a wonderful Italian chef — I think I have some credibility.) Meat, especially red, has notoriously made me ill. I thought it was just a part of the eating process — the bloating, the gas, the lethargy — until I spent a month eating vegan in India and gained a level of energy and clarity I had previously unknown.
Now, whenever a friend wants to eat out, I offer a vegan place unless they push back. Now I cook almost exclusively vegan at home, but make no comment when my partner cooks meat. I think this is the way to go: to silently encourage people to try it, without making a show. It’s the quiet nudges, and the lack of strictness and shame within my own diet, that are making this new lifestyle shift sustainable.
On the occasion I do eat meat, I try to be mindful of its origins (locally grown, organic, grass fed, etc.). I pause to think about the animal, the butcher, the farmer, the soil and grass that made this sacrifice possible. It’s 100% woo woo and not a hard and fast routine, but I try. It makes the experience more special and conscious — and the meal taste even better.
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Tucker’s Corner
I had the realization the other night while watching the film Panic Room that because it was a film I watched VERY often as a teenager I’d developed a strange familiarity with its two leads. When I hear Jodie Foster’s voice it sounds like a close relative. The way she speaks is comforting to me. The same is true for Kristen Stewart who feels like a close cousin. Being not even 2 full years older than her I have this weird sense that we grew up together and getting to see her career blossom has kept her a constant in my life. Like visiting family once or twice a year on holidays and being the short amount of time you get to share together. I have a similar relationship to the leads in the Harry Potter films (again we’re all basically the same age) but Kristen Stewart’s career post the Twilight films has been brilliant. As she’s honed her craft she’s stepped further and further from the mainstream and into some truly interesting works. Films like Spencer, Personal Shopper, and Crimes of the Future (to name the most recent) showcase her ability to channel her anxieties into portraying very believable outcasts, loners, and runaways. Her work in the film I’m reviewing this week fits the same bill and has her again at the top of her game. This is Love Lies Bleeding.
Love Lies Bleeding
Gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) is introduced with her hand down a clogged toilet. She will spend a lot of the next two hours cleaning up much worse messes in Rose Glass’ powerful “Love Lies Bleeding,” a sexy, brutal, violent, kinetic piece of filmmaking that’s about, well, love, lies, and bleeding. It’s a gut punch about a steroid-using bodybuilder that’s on roids itself, getting bolder and more cinematically muscular with each subsequent twist. This is a film that confirms that Glass is a major talent with an uncompromising vision.
Lou lives in one of those middle of nowhere towns that the American dream forgot. Set at the end of the prime of the musclebound hero era in 1989, Glass sketches a remote town in New Mexico that looks like it literally traps people in cycles of violence. Lou has a locally famous family in that her father Lou Sr. (a wonderfully seedy Ed Harris) is basically the town’s crime lord. The owner of a gun range, he’s running weapons across the border, and has been disposing of his enemies in a nearby ravine, possibly even Lou’s mother. Lou’s sister Beth (Jena Malone) struggles under the pain of domestic abuse at the hands of her awful husband JJ (Dave Franco). Into this vat of lighter fluid drops the flame that is Jackie (Katy O’Brian), a bodybuilder just stopping off to train on her way to a contest in Las Vegas. She’s like nothing Lou has ever seen. They fall in love, alternating injections of steroids with other kinds of strenuous physical activity. The charismatic O’Brian play Jackie like a literal superhero, getting stronger with each shot of either steroids or Lou’s commitment to her, but her Bruce Banner ultimately has a dark side too.
At first, “Love Lies Bleeding” feels like a relatively straightforward noir with the outsider in Jackie almost stumbling into decisions that can’t be reversed. It’s been compared to “Drive” and “Thelma & Louise,” but there’s also a bit of the great “Red Rock West” and other films about strangers who get stuck in the small town they just wanted to spend a night in. When a shocking and gory act of violence forever alters Jackie & Lou’s relationship, “Love Lies Bleeding” really picks up steam, pushing its characters into increasingly tight spaces from which violence may provide the only escape. But it constantly swerves left when you expect it to swerve right, unpredictable in ways that can be invigorating.
Part of that comes from the fact that Rose Glass hasn’t made a traditional modern noir. She’s made a film that doesn’t lean into tropes like the femme fatale as much as explode in a new direction, getting more surreal and unpredictable, like a steroid trip gone very wrong. Glass avoids the potential to go Refn-esque stylized too, edging into territory that could be called over-done but never crossing that line. She very intentionally keeps the film gritty, sweaty, and dirty, which greatly adds to the substance and the stakes. (Major credit to a phenomenal Clint Mansell score too.)
Of course, it helps that the usually-great Kristen Stewart knows exactly what to do here, playing Lou not as a wide-eyed loser who is just trying to escape her life, but a strong voice made louder by her love for Jackie. It’s important that Lou isn’t a victim in this tale, and Stewart nails a character who is somehow both confident and vulnerable at the same time. She’s the cleaner (and I also love how much “Love Lies Bleeding” focuses on how acts of violence have a very practical aftermath that someone has to clean up.) It’s a great performance.
Just as in “Saint Maud,” “Love Lies Bleeding” is about obsession. That stunning debut was about obsession with faith and religion. This one is about obsession with all the things that make people feel powerful, particularly guns and muscles. Glass sets up characters with distinct goals—Jackie wants to win, Lou wants Jackie, her dad wants power, etc.—and then she bounces them off each other in increasingly gonzo narrative twists. What elevates it is how much of a grip Glass maintains on her filmmaking through the chaos. Even as these characters are practically spinning off into the sky, Rose Glass is in complete control.
Northrop Grumman Bat carrying EO/IR and SAR sensors, laser range finders, laser designators, infra-red cameras
U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Jessica Crownover - This image was released by the United States Navy with the ID 140606-N-IQ177-002 (next). This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing. العربية ∙ বাংলা ∙ Deutsch ∙ Deutsch (Sie-Form) ∙ English ∙ español ∙ euskara ∙ فارسی ∙ français ∙ italiano ∙ 日本語 ∙ 한국어 ∙ македонски ∙ മലയാളം ∙ Plattdüütsch ∙ Nederlands ∙ polski ∙ پښتو ∙ português ∙ русский ∙ slovenščina ∙ svenska ∙ Türkçe ∙ українська ∙ 简体中文 ∙ 繁體中文 ∙ +/−
During an experimentation conducted by U.S. Fourth Fleet and Navy Warfare Development Command (NWDC), the Northrop Grumman Bat unmanned aircraft system flies over the joint high speed vessel USNS Spearhead (JHSV-1) during its maiden flight off of a U.S. Navy vessel in the Straits of Florida.
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Technology
Faster and faster.
Spinning and faster.
AI last year, and now come delivery drones. After a decade of development, delivery drones are finally going mainstream.
More electric drones in the sky means fewer noisy trucks on the road and less tailpipe emission.
What's happening: With some (but not all) regulatory hurdles cleared, retailers, medical centers and logistics platforms will start offering drone delivery in many more suburban neighborhoods in '24.
That means receiving dinners, prescriptions and household items at your doorstep in less than 30 minutes.
Amazon — where executive chairman Jeff Bezos first floated the idea of drone delivery back in 2013 — is ramping up toward a goal of 500 million drone deliveries a year by the end of the decade.
In 2024, Amazon will add a third U.S. site, plus two more in Europe, before accelerating its push in subsequent years.
It's also introducing a smaller, quieter delivery drone, which will be fully integrated into Amazon's delivery network this year.
That means Amazon trucks, vans and drones will depart from the same building, giving customers access to faster delivery of a greater selection.
Wing, a subsidiary of Alphabet, has completed over 350,000 deliveries so far, the vast majority in Australia.
In the U.S., it's making deliveries for Walmart within a 6-mile range of two superstores in the Dallas area and for certain retailers in Christiansburg, Va.
Other companies, including Walmart-backed DroneUp and Israel's Flytrex, are also planning to expand this year without the limitation of human observers.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
I intend to live forever.
So far, so good.
Steven Wright
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Six Word Stories
"Flickering candle, shadows dance, memories ignite."
Market Place by Candlelight by Petrus Van Schendel -
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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 word of encouragement from Victor P:
Dom,
Good luck on the 23rd. I am confident that you will deliver your speech eloquently 😊!
Gutes Glück, mein Freund,
Victor
This from an anonymous reader who talks too much--haha. (Has the gift of the Blarney;)
Hey Dom,
I really enjoyed your daughter's piece about silence. Over the last four years, my favorite time of the day (like, delicious time that I savor) is when I have a chance to sit down with a cup of tea once everybody has left the house and I write in my journal. Now, I guess it's not completely silent, because I usually have the classical music station very low on the radio as the soundtrack to our lives (99.5) but there are no words and it is low. Though, I have not done it recently, I can highly recommend a silent retreat to your daughter, or you or anybody. It's run by the Jesuits, so there is a faith component -- but one you can take or leave as you see fit -- and it's a lot closer than India:) It's the Eastern Point Retreat House in Gloucester (aka Gonzaga) and I and my husband, separately, have gone on many a silent retreat there for weekends over the years. It really is amazing how much can be revealed in silence and I always bring a journal so I can soak in my inner thoughts and ponder everything that flows through my mind, including my faith. The funny thing is, that the first time I did it I realized that until we sit in silence for a good length of time (like hours) we can never get too deep in our thinking because all the surface stuff must be sorted through. Those are distractions and so for a time you think the silence is pointless, but eventually I would find my mind would be done sifting surface-level stuff and start digging into the richer soil below. Like anything, you can take things as deeply as you want. I also enjoy climbing out on the rocks because it is right on the ocean and just being in awe and alone and listening to the ocean. Then I walk around the area and marvel at the mansions and wonder about the stories behind their doors and wish I had something like it. Then I return and say hello to Mary:) I take advantage of the faith talks and mass as well as the adoration chapel, but really they are not taking attendance and if you feel closer to the Lord outside . . . they are not concerned for you to remain there.
So, being the middle of Lent, thought I'd pass that along to you, if you're ever interested in something spiritual and silent, as well as your daughter.
Here's the website: Home (easternpoint.org)
It's definitely a special place.
And this to Colleen G from Katherine C:
Colleen, thank you for your kind and thoughtful reply to my post. So lovely to hear about your morning tea and journal ritual — sounds amazing.
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Last Comment
Wow! It’s the Wednesday before my Saturday TEDx talk day.
Feeling a tiny bit edgy but buoyed by my first good practice delivery.
Gives me hope I will be ready.
What would I have done without the help of my children and the Speech Consultants at Babson?
They were so helpgul.
Restaurants that support the North End website we edit and publish: questonorthend.org
Bricco - Our talented kitchen team creates “boutique” Italian food, so-called because it is unique, personal and created for a select and sophisticated diner. The food is complemented by an enoteca (wine bar) with an exceptional selection of all-Italian wines. Our chic and energetic bar serves up great one of a kind cocktails as well as brick oven pizza with gourmet toppings such as prosciutto and fresh mozzarella from Italy in addition with appetizer selections.
Umbria - This classic Italian Steakhouse features rustic cuisine of the region of Umbria as well as a wide selection of Italian-style steak cuts. In addition to the rustic cuisine, guest can also enjoy food and beverages on the rooftop lounge Mia which opens shortly.
Mare - A modern Italian seafood restaurant and oyster bar in Boston’s North End, offering a plentiful variety of options from the sea.
Quattro - Inspired by Italy’s passion for high quality foods prepared with fresh ingredients, Quattro brings delicious foods from simple locally grown ingredients. Frank DePasquale does something few restaurateurs have every tried, melding a full service restaurant that serves wine, beer and cordials with a kitchen equipped with a rotisserie, a char broiler and an authentic Neapolitan brick style pizza oven.
Trattoria Il Panino - Located right down the main vein of Hanover Street is Trattoria Il Panino, “Boston’s first original trattoria.” Our famous pasta dishes are best enjoyed on our covered patio area, open to the breeze and the sidewalk which is prime for enjoying the ambiance of the North End. Our menu combines traditional Italian cuisine with only the freshest of ingredients.
Aqua Pazza - Charming neighborhood hideaway serving cuisine-jumping Mediterranean small plates.
Assaggio - Intimate bi-level eatery for romantic dining, offering Italian-American classics & a full bar.
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