March 31, 2024
# 1651
An April fool in Denmark, regarding Copenhagen's new subway. It looks as if one of its cars had an accident, and had broken through and surfaced on the square in front of the town hall. In reality, it was a retired car from the subway of Stockholm cut obliquely, with the front end placed onto the tiling and loose tiles scattered around it. Note the sign "Gevalia" (a coffee company) and the accident site tape with the words "Uventede gæster?" (unexpected guests?). Gevalia's advertising featured various vehicles popping up with unexpected guests.
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COVER:
April Fools’ Day, celebrated annually on April 1, is a playful tradition where people engage in practical jokes and hoaxes. The origins remain mysterious, but some theories trace it back to 16th-century France when the switch from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar led to confusion about the new year’s date. Those who clung to the old date became the “April fools,” pranked with paper fish on their backs.
In ancient Rome, the Hilaria festival involved disguises and mockery. Today, media outlets and brands join the fun, reporting outrageous fictional claims that delight and deceive audiences.
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Commentary
It’s done. On a recent Saturday afternoon, I delivered my TEDx talk at Babson College. The dual subject was the magic of growing up in Boston’s North End in the 1950s and 1960s and the magic of discovering the joy of creating edible art.
My first ever such talk, I was filled with trepidation. But I got tremendous support from the Babson College Speech Center and the Babson liaison staff, support from my dearest friends, and outrageous support from my four public-speaking experienced children, both in a family Zoom call and individual conversations. I knew I had a good script.
Nonetheless, waiting immediately offstage for the few minutes before I was to go on, I wondered what I was doing here? Did I belong? Was I to flub it up with all my family and friends watching? They wished me so well, I could feel their love. I did not want to disappoint them.
I don’t believe I did.
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Kat’s Gen Z Corner
Read this!
This is the best book I’ve read so far this year.
I think you will like it, too.
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Tucker’s Corner
In Perfect Days, the camera follows a man as he goes about his morning. Getting up, brushing his teeth, shaving, watering his plants, dressing, going to work. The question on the audience’s mind is, of course, who is he? The man observed silently going about his daily routine is Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), a Tokyo toilet cleaner with a penchant for playing classic songs collected on cassette tapes, reading many books, and taking photos of city parks. As the onion is peeled further we discover that he is estranged from his family and past. Though Perfect Days never reveals the specific details of Hirayama beyond what happens in the few days we spend in his company, by the end of the film, a full portrait of a life is beautifully realized.
Perfect Days
Marking a return to form for legendary German filmmaker Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, Paris, Texas), Perfect Days’ style is patient, observational, and unobstructive. Nothing much happens, yet everything does. Hirayama continues with his day; finishes work, goes to a bathhouse to clean, and to a bar for a respite with company. At work, he interacts with a chatty younger colleague (Tokio Emoto). And even then the audience gets to know more about his colleague than Hirayama.
Later in the film his niece (Arisa Nakano) visits and a window opens into why he might be isolated. But Wenders and his co-screenwriter Takuma Takasakiare are mostly concerned with the present. The past is alluded to but never becomes the focal point. To those looking from the outside, Hirayama’s life seems small, insignificant. Perhaps it was grander, fuller before. To him, this is what he wants. He loves the simplicity and we as the audience watching him fully appreciate that.
Yakusho makes for a subtle, uncomplicated but totally compelling screen presence. The character is always calm and the actor’s features are opaque for the most part. Yet as his face fills the screen and his watchful eyes look at the other actors, Yakusho ably telegraphs what this mostly silent man is thinking. He’s in every frame of this film, yet the audience never tires of watching him. It’s inexplicable and totally engrossing.
In a later scene with his estranged sister (Yumi Aso), Hirayama’s history is revealed. Not in the script, which remains withholding. It’s the fiery matchup of Yakusho and Aso. The actors never raise their voices, or resort to big dramatic gestures. They remain even-keeled, their characters only exchanging pleasantries. Yet the volcanic history between them sizzles in the performances.
The soundtrack, heard through Hirayama’s cassette tapes, reveals more of the main character’s history. Needle drops can be an obvious, tiresome device in movies. In Perfect Days there are no needle drops, it’s just the music that Hiryama listens to. The Velvet Underground, Otis Redding, Patti Smith. These artists give this character a historical and emotional context. Nina Simone’s Feeling Good gets a poignant resonance here because we hear it while looking at Yakusho’s face. There’s so much wonder and joy on his face that the moment transforms the ordinary—a man singing along to a song many love in his car—into something extraordinary.
With Perfect Days, Wenders shows what an artist who has lived a full life can accomplish. There’s a sweet rhythm to the film that cherishes the small moments that might go unnoticed elsewhere. A moment of solitude taking in nature at a park, a chance meeting with a stranger, or a shared bond over a song. Wenders understands what makes life special and in Perfect Days he sweetly, simply, and without much fanfare tells us how.
For any Spotify users out there I made a playlist of all the songs used in the film. Enjoy!
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4aBm6B9U3duMQiTnoci05M?si=d2063eba0ace44cc
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Do You Believe in Magic? Anthology of Stories from the North End
Edited by Dom Capossela
We loved our culinary repertoire. I’m talking great meals, whether the pedestrian broccoli with pasta and chicken, or the outrageous production of the universally celebrated Sunday feast, the Gravy.
Picture a large pot, a cauldron, maybe, crammed with assorted meats including perhaps, a pork roast, London broil, spareribs, pig’s feet, chicken feet, or skirt steak pounded thin, heavily seasoned, and rolled then tied into a braciola set carefully into the pot so it wouldn’t unravel, all the meats happily simmering side by side in tomatoes for hours.
The meats varied from week to week depending on what the butcher had or our budgets, except that
Always, always, ALWAYS the pot held a generous supply of what? What meat did I fail to mention? Spaghetti and?” Shout it out! That’s right. Our iconic Italian meatballs, the sine qua non of every Gravy.
On March 23, 2024, Dom presented a Ted Talk which took root in the book, Do You Believe in Magic, published by Victor Passacantilli and Dom Capossela, two rogues not to be trusted.
This link is for the entire production (Four hours long) but has been magically programmed by our own Tucker J to take you directly to Dom’s presentation.
This is the link
https://www.youtube.com/live/bwgcup6k7z8?si=GbJZj7MmHIl_-PYr&t=13524
www.youtube.com
A poem to a dear friend, ill, by Ralph Indrisano
Dearest Brother,
Today, I came to visit you in your sullen death bed.
Today, I saw more life leave your face
Today, I can see the indomitable life you are and will always be
Beyond your body’s wrenching woe.
I can see your soul you share with me
I can hear wordless words from eternity.
I can fell my only desire in what you disappear.
Words that scan reality
Words that see from not sight
Words that hear beyond sound
That finds eternity in me
Together, we walked the earth
Wordless pledges we have made
Wordless pledges before time came to be
I fell the grief that will come to me
I hear the despair that will come to me
I see me leaving my visions that you made for me
When your body leaves me.
I have heard the best nonetheless.
I know from the best that I am the best.
I know me better now as your body leaves me.
The pledges we made are yet to be
Pledges we made from eternity
Pledges that will come to be.
Forever
Your Brother
a poem by Ralph Indrisano
Tim Leiland
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Chuckles and Thoughts
To be free. Such a thing would be greater than all the magic and all the treasures in all the world.
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Six Word Stories
"Bittersweet goodbye, welcome home, healing hearts."
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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 letter, from dear friend, Ralph I, accompanied the poem published above. It’s a heartache.
Jimmy and Dom,
Bobby Puopolo has avoided seeing out of addiction to isolation for fifty years. We were brothers growing up in the North End. Now that Bobby lays dying, I thought seeing Bobby was going to be difficult. It has been the opposite joyful and sublime. We are closer now than we were ever in our lives. Bobby said to me were were broken since day one and broken all our lives this is why we are able to do things we do. I don’t know of anyplace or with anyone where this can happen. i strongly feel this is part of the phenomena we are committed to express from growing up in the North End.
I have this wonderful experience of you and Jimmy much like our hearts have trust for the oxygenated blood the lungs gives it. I treasure our friendship and mutual commitments.
If you fell that this poem will forward our work please publish it. I asked Bobby for permission
Forever
Raphael Arcangelo
And this from cousin and best friend, Lauren C:
I just wanted to say I am so happy for you and you did amazing. It was so much fun. What an accolade to add to your repertoire. Thank you again for making me a part of it all. I'm always so proud of being by your side and I love supporting you. You deserve all the good feelings . Love you ❤️
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Last Comment
I reached for my pot bubbling away on my stove, boiling a whole cabbage.
The kitchen towel caught on an unused burner and resulted in the overturn of the pot of scalding water over my hand and wrist.
Sonofabitch.
Seeing a doctor tomorrow.
Gonna be a long, long, night.
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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