October 29 2023
October 29, 2023
# 1629
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COVER STORY
Ralph Indrisano grew up in Boston’s Italian North End in the 1950s-70s, the golden age for that Italian American community.
He is about to publish a book he worked on for a year and a half:
The Streets are too Long. North End Stories.
The title is taken from a line in the book. Ralph faces the publication with both excitement and fear.
The book is 100 pages and gathers twelve short stories honoring people in the North End, especially people who led diminished lives or even died because of circumstances surrounding their North End upbringings. These were fit people deemed unfit for military duty, or people who became heroin addicted and died of related symptoms, like hepatitis or liver cancer. The book will be published before the end of October and will cost $7.90.
Ralph is still combatting Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder, PTSD and ADD. As a child he was unfortunately labeled as retarded and suffered from that misdiagnosis for decades,, until he met a friend-mentor who recognized his skills and talents and helped turn Ralph into a reader and then a writer. It’s notable that the first book Ralph read was “The Brothers Karamazov.”
When Ralph first started writing, and for the first two years, Ralph hated the discipline. He loved the freedom of carpentry, his chosen profession. But he grew to love writing and today, he has the luxury of writing creatively three to four hours daily.
Despite the obstacles Ralph has had to overcome, he remains an optimistic person, devoted to learning. Although not a college graduate, he has taken courses for decades, like the poetry class he is now enrolled in.
Ralph tells young people that writing is a calling, subtly distinguished from having a passion.
Part II
Dom,
My writing is in part inquiries. There is a quote by words Wordsworth “ That best portion of a man’s life, his little nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.” That has fascinated me. What does he mean? How could something so small and unremembered be the best portion of a person’s life? I remember having conversations with Nick Laurentano, who graduate from BC with a perfect cum average, about philosophy. At that time people called me Da Da Ralphie because I stuttered. He was so kind and treated me with such respect. I remember Nick telling me that people thought that I was not intelligent but that I am intelligent. It was such a huge thing for me. I would not of read Socrates and take on embodying his teaching if it was not for that quote. Many of these stories are about this phenomena which I still do not understand.
Also I feel I have a certain ear for listening to what is writable. I remember talking to Captain Carl when they had the super mega bucks out for the first time. The Captain said did you play the lottery. I said yes. He said what are you going to do when you get the money. I said I am going to Vegas have sex the most beautiful prostitute eat the best food and gamble my ass off. I asked Captain Carl what would he do. He said not me I am going to be selfish. I am going to give money to the Industrial school and my family who needs it. This enthralled me for decades until I realized that Carl was right. Who we are is contribution and love and to express our love and to make a contribution is being selfish acting in accordance to who we are.
This is one reason why I am called to be a writer. I can not cooked: I love feeding people if I cooked it will be fucking murder. I feel my calling is to feed people with words.
Thanks for the support. There are few things more precious that being in comrade for something bigger than ourselves especially with guys from the North End.
Part III
And God Bless you Dominic Capossela. One of the things I love about our partnership and friendship is I have a certain clarity when we speak. I realized It would be worth it to be a writer even if I only touch one person like Nick Laurentano touched me.
Thank you.
Part IV
Dom,
I experience from out conversations that there is a trust that is not based on rationality a trust that is mystical and spiritual.
Thank you.
Love
R
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Commentary
“Sidney Powell, a former attorney for President Donald Trump, has pleaded guilty in the Georgia election subversion case. She was one of 18 co-defendants in the case and is pleading to six misdemeanor charges. As part of the plea deal, she must testify truthfully about any co-defendants involved in the case and provide all documents relevant to their case against the other co-defendants. The trial was set to start on October 20, 2023, but she pleaded guilty one day before it was scheduled to begin “
These are some of the loveliest words I’ve heard in the last year of reporting.
Sidney Powell, attorney for President Donald Trump, conducts a news conference at the Republican National Committee on lawsuits regarding the outcome of the 2020 presidential election on Thursday, November 19, 2020. Trump attorneys Rudolph Giuliani and Jenna Ellis, also attended.
Saturday Night Fever
John Travolta has nothing on this group.
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Kat’s Gen Z Corner
By a few of my ashtanga yoga friends, I was invited to a Garba Dance Festival last Saturday. I really don't remember the last time I had so much fun. We danced in circles and in lines and in pairs and in groups and with sticks and without. Everyone was incredibly friendly and happy to share their traditions with other New Yorkers. We even took to the streets of Soho to dance!
"Garba" translates to "womb" and is celebrated during the Hindu celebration called "Navratri," which occurs over nine nights in honor of the goddess Durga, who represents motherhood. It's a celebration of femininity and was so joyous to participate in. Do Christians have this much fun?
Picture: On the left is my ashtanga teacher, Jamie, who is a dear friend and incredibly fun. The couple on the right I also met through ashtanga, although they have blossomed into regular dinner companions for me and Will. They have a model relationship that leaves us really inspired.
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Do You Believe in Magic? Anthology of Stories from the North End
Edited by Dom Capossela
HI VICTOR !
IT'S A SAD DAY SINCE I JUST FINISHED READING THE BOOK.
I LOVED IT AND I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE NEXT ONE,
"I BELIEVE IN MAGIC'' .
THANKS FOR YOUR HARD WORK.
DOM VENEZIA
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Tucker’s Corner
Martin Scorsese is 80 years old and in no sign of slowing down. His newest film is somehow in the running for one of his absolute best and with the body of work being compared here that’s a staggering thing to say. This is Killers of the Flower Moon.
Killers of the Flower Moon - Directed by Martin Scorsese
The first footage of Killers of the Flower Moon anyone got to see came in the form of a 2-minute teaser trailer. In it, Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) reads aloud from a book about the Osage Nation. The final line uttered in the short trailer is incredibly employed for the film being advertised but could be just as aptly used for any of Martin Scorsese’s crime films.
“Can you find the wolves in this picture?”
This quote made me think of something just as applicable from Goodfellas. “Your murderers come with smiles, they come as your friends.” So said Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), right before one of those friends — the one played with a tiger’s grin of ill intentions by Robert De Niro — tried to trick him into a one-way trip to Florida. Hill’s words of warning, much like trying to find the wolves in the picture, echo through Martin Scorsese’s canon of greed, betrayal, and death. They take on a freshly damning historical context in the director’s monumental new film, in which a string of slayings in 1920s Oklahoma becomes a microcosm for America’s oldest project, its original sin: the genocide of the indigenous. The murderers come with smiles here, too.
Horrifically, this story is true. Scorsese and Eric Roth adapted the screenplay from David Grann’s 2017 book of the same name. Grann’s book is well researched nonfiction, but it reads like page-turner fiction. Right from the jump he lays out the fortune and misfortune of the Osage Nation at the turn of the last century, made rich by the discovery of oil on their land, and then hounded by white interlopers hoping to squeeze every last coin from their purses. The meat of the story begins when prominent members of the tribe begin turning up dead and it becomes clear that those who seek the Osage wealth will try to get it by any means necessary.
These murders draw federal agents to Osage County and lead to the first major case of J. Edgar Hoover’s recently formed FBI. Grann’s book is largely built around that investigation, led by a former Texas Ranger named Tom White. Played perfectly by Jesse Plemons, White is a character in the film version as well but he’s far from the central figure, first appearing nearly 2 hours into this 3 ½ hour epic. Scorsese and Roth have taken a different approach to telling this story, molding the film from a murder mystery into something more intimate. The film’s focus rests on the relationship between Mollie Burkhart (Lily Gladstone), whose Osage family is directly targeted by the killers, and DiCaprio’s Ernest Burkhart, a WWI veteran who starts as Mollie’s chauffeur and eventually becomes her husband.
It's Ernest’s wealthy uncle, William King Hale (a never better Robert De Niro), fabled “friend of the Osage” and a folksy white cattleman and philanthropist — who plays matchmaker. It’s a pleasure to see Scorsese’s two favorite actors get to share the screen together because they’re both at the height of their powers. Hale plants the idea of courtship with Mollie subtly and buries any intention under his affluent civility. Ernest, we quickly see, is too dumb, greedy, craven, or a mix of the three to realize he’s being pulled, if gently, into something bigger than himself. Something truly nefarious is being initiated.
The evil plan at the film’s heart unfolds gradually, as Scorsese threads the genuine romance of Ernest and Mollie through the expanding horror of what happens to her family beginning with the disappearance of her sister Anna (Cara Jade Myers). Though Killers is over 200 minutes in length it never drags thanks in large part to Scorsese’s longtime editor Thelma Schoonmaker. (This is the 25th Scorsese film she’s edited). In her skillful hands Killers’ tale of murderous conspiracy takes on the flowing quality of a river winding steadily and unstoppably downhill. She and Scorsese bring the evil to the surface in a different way than their source material. The book offers a string of shocking revelations as the investigators learn more. The film puts us in the rooms where the plans are made and makes us watch as these horrors are carried out almost casually, as if the murderers are tying their boots or hanging up their hats.
Almost insanely this is Scorsese’s first western and though he takes the opportunity to portray gorgeous landscapes that stretch across the movie screen like the best images of the genre, he never goes for the romanticism western’s often display. He spares no glory for outlaws or lawmen. Though White and his team of white hats do finally arrive to bring some order to the mania they’re far too late to save the day. There are dozens of westerns whose central theme is the death of a beautiful bygone America. Killers of the Flower Moon defiantly reminds us that most of that notion is a lie. This is a country that has offered countless opportunities to countless many but before any of that happened it was a scaffold for the massacre of millions.
Mollie — shattered by compounding losses, sick with heartache and disease — is the movie’s grieving conscience. Gladstone, who made her breakthrough playing an achingly vulnerable cowgirl in Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, cuts through the corrupt chatter with as little as a weary stare. But just as history and scoundrels conspired to diminish Mollie, so does the movie strategically sideline her. There are critiques (and fair ones) about centering this story of The Osage on white protagonists, but I think there’s a genius to that decision.
One of the most intriguing things about Scorsese’s work is that the moral perspective often doesn’t belong to the central characters. He is forever fascinated by the weak and culpable, and risks charges of valorizing scoundrels by getting into their heads and bending movies around their vices, their flaws, their mistakes. Killers of the Flower Moon is classic Scorsese in that respect making it a cousin to the backstabbing back stretches of Goodfellas and The Wolf of Wall Street. In other ways, this is very much the aging master who made the crown jewel of crime opuses with The Irishman. He brings that same depth of detail, that same patient deliberation, and that focus on a cog of violent history to Killers and from my vantage has made another absolute American classic.
Killers of the Flower Moon is a banshee’s wail of outrage. Centering the story on Ernest, one of Scorsese’s most pathetic but interesting characters, we can see exactly what the director wants us to. So many white men throughout our nation’s history behaved the same way he does. With spineless complacency. DiCaprio, teeth browned, and intellect dimmed like an old light bulb, makes Ernest a simple man of simple desires without simplifying the contradiction within him. Can his love be real when it puts no barrier between him and unspeakable evil? By its devastating final minutes, Scorsese has whittled down the vast, unfathomable scope of his historical epic to a close-up portrait of moral cowardice. Despite being a lover of the Rolling Stones and having featured their music in nearly all of his films Scorsese makes it clear with Killers that this time there is no sympathy for the devil.
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Writing
My work on my great novel is proceeding apace. I originally thought the end of January. It’s looking good. I’m certain to have it done by then. I spend two hours a day on it. They are my favorite hours.
Appearances
In the last eight days I’ve made seven presentations to groups that averaged forty people. I love the events, from my delivery to my readings, the Q and A, and the book signing.
Not every signing was as effusive as this.
But the love always appreciated.
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Chuckles and Thoughts
"Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town."
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Six Word Stories
"Silent stars, whispered wishes, endless possibilities."
Dom’s Notes: Domaine Heresztyn-Mazzini, French Burgundy, Pinot Noir, 2021
A dark red wine with plums, berries, and spice on the nose. Tastes of plum and berry, minerals.
It’s a medium bodied wine with light tannin but good acidity. The aftertaste is persistent.
The gestalt of the wine is non-aggressive, waiting for the taster to appreciate it.
From Producer: Easy to drink, fruity, with a gourmet, crisp side. The result is deliciously seductive.
And
From a critic: The Heresztyn-Mazzini style is toward subtle prettiness, but all their wines have a certain croquant (crunchy) element, that makes us think of fruit like cranberries and blueberries.
CACIO E PEPE
for 2
THE Sauce
1 cup finely grated pecorino Romano, plus more for dusting completed dish
1 tablespoon ground black pepper, plus more for finishing the dish
1 large egg
1/2t red pepper flakes
1TB butter
3TB chopped parsley (basil)
salt to taste and 1t of freshly ground pepper
In a large bowl, whisk until well-combined, the cheese, herbs and spices, and egg, with just enough cold water to make a thick paste.
Reserve
COMBINE THE PASTA WITH SAUCE
½ pound tonnarelli or other long pasta like linguine or spaghetti
Cook the pasta al dentissimo and drain, reserving 1 cup of starchy water if needed for the sauce.
Immediately return the pasta to the pot
Add the cheese and egg mixture to the pasta, along with a 1/2 cup of the reserved pasta cooking water.
Toss everything together quickly and thoroughly. The goal is to allow the pasta a moment to drink the last of the water (this takes the pasta from al dentissimo to al dente) and to allow the cheese to melt and coat the pasta. The sauce becomes creamy and smooth. Add more pasta cooking water as needed to achieve the desired consistency. The sauce should cling to the pasta and be creamy but not watery
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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 Tommy Damigella,
President of the North End Historical Society
On a recent visit to the White House.
What a hoot!
It is my pleasure as President of the NEHS to share my amazing visit and experience at the White House on October 12th. It truly was an honor to be part of this delegation of American Italians who were invited by The First Lady to the White House for thefirst time ever reception to honor Italian American Heritage Month.
She is the first Italian-American to serve as the First Lady in the White House!
Her speech took place in the famous East Room which is next to the Green, Blue, and Red Rooms which have many of the oil paintings of past presidents. You cannot help but to be overwhelmed by the feeling of being surrounded by over 200 years of American History that created the world's greatest Republic.
Our North End History certainly reflects much of the early American Revolution period and Colonial era that I witnessed in this historic building.
The most important point about this visit was that the Italian Heritage of many Americans was proudly acknowledged for its contribution to making America a truly great country. It proves that one can hope for a better life through honest hard work and personal effort to make a better life, like many immigrant grandparents and parents did for their children right here in this iconic Italian neighborhood called the North End.
Only in America!
Sincerely,
Tom Damigella
Tommy Damigella
Cannot say enough in praise of this man.
He’s a human being says it all.
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Last Note:
This Celtics team feels like a winner. Their last two acquisitions, Jrue Holiday and Kristnaps Porzingas are perfect fits. But can Kristnaps stay healthy?
He has had a history of injuries throughout his career. Prior to his ACL tear, he had suffered from a bruised left leg, right shoulder soreness, left groin soreness, left Achilles soreness, sprained right ankle, left thigh contusion, sore back, sprained left ankle, low back tightness, sore left knee and left knee irritation. He has also had injuries to his left Achilles tendon, his left peroneal tendons via the ankle sprain, muscular pain on his left leg with a lower and upper leg contusion, soreness and swelling in his left knee (specifically in the months leading up to the ACL tear), and low back tightness.
However, according to the Boston Celtics’ official statement on Kristaps Porzingis’ foot injury in October 2023, this setback doesn’t appear to be connected to previous health issues.
If “The Unicorn”, a preferred nickname, stays healthy, the Celtics will hoist Championship Banner 18 this season.
Very Last Thought
Hail, too, Attorney Jenna Ellis who, like Sidney above, also took a plea deal, pledging, if called upon, to testify to the truth, even if the truth is against Trump’s interests.
Really, the Last Thought
And now, it seems that Mark Meadows is talking!
Meadows told Smith's team "that he repeatedly told Trump in the weeks after the 2020 election that allegations of significant voting fraud ... were baseless," and that Trump had been "dishonest" with his quick claim of victory right after polls closed. This will frustrate Trump’s claims that he did not know that he was speaking lies and he followed what his aides told him was true.
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