May 5, 2024
# 1656
Cinco de Mayo
Contemporary painting of the Battle of Puebla, fought in Mexico on 5 May 1862 (from which the Cinco de Mayo celebrations originate) between the forces of the French Empire and the Mexican Republic. In this battle, the French army, which was invading Mexico in order to overthrow its liberal republican government and install a monarchy friendly to their own interests, was defeated by a smaller force of the Mexican army. A text at the bottom-left corner of the painting reads "A derecha la batalla ga[na]da a los france[se]s el 5 de mayo de [18]62. Garita de Am[ozoc]" (To the right, the battle which was won against the French on 5 May 1862. Garita of Amozoc).
anonymous - Mediateca INAH: https://mediateca.inah.gob.mx/islandora_74/islandora/object/pintura%3A1203
______________________________________
COVER:
Cinco de Mayo, celebrated on the 5th of May, marks the Battle of Puebla in 1862, an inspirational event for Mexico during the war against France. It proved a stunning revelation to the rest of the world which had largely expected a rapid victory for French arms. The victory filled the government of Benito Juarez with high hopes. Zaragoza received the thanks of congress, and was awarded a sword. The city name of Puebla de los Ángeles was changed to Puebla de Zaragoza. Honors and rewards were decreed to the officers and men who took part in the action. Zaragoza sent the government the medals and decorations taken on the battlefield as well of those from prisoners, but President Juarez returned them along with the French prisoners of war. General Zaragoza would not live long after the victory as he died four months later due to typhoid fever. A decree issued by Benito Juárez established the major annual event cinco de mayo.
Although more widely celebrated in the United States than in Mexico, it’s a day of Mexican pride and patriotism. Traditional foods include tacos, enchiladas, and guacamole, while tequila and cerveza flow freely. Colorful parades and lively music fill the streets. People don sombreros and dance to mariachi tunes. The holiday commemorates resilience, unity, and victory. Whether you’re savoring nachos or raising a margarita, Cinco de Mayo is a vibrant fiesta that brings people together.
______________________________________
Commentary
In my many decades of observing politics in America, I have witnessed [participated in], many campus eruptions, from ‘Ban the Bomb’, to ‘March on Washington’, and now to protesting the continuing reckless death and devastation wreaked on Gaza.
Always have the student mobilizations simplified the issues. Always they have supported the weak and helpless. Always they had humaneness on their side.
I am not a student of the politics of the Middle East and am not qualified to take a side for or against.
I do support the duty of new adults to recalibrate our moral compasses.
I do oppose the use of stringent measures to close down public demonstrations.
U+262E ☮. Logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), designed by Gerald Holtom in 1958,
Kwamikagami - Own work
Life’s Moments
Thrifters welcome
Dream Apartment
Every piece of furniture in my apartment thrifted. Really, every piece. It’s nice knowing I’m not contributing to our environmentally unsustainable shopping practices in this small way — and it’s fun bargaining, getting inspired by other people’s homes, and coming to know the secondhand furniture and clothing world quite well.
We got the dining table yesterday, barely managed to fit it in an Uber XL, and scratched the bottom in the process. But the tears and sweat that were shed were so worth it. We paid something like 1/3 of the retail price and felt like we worked for it. We earned it.
Now I live in my dream apartment. Second to only my apartment in Boston with Dad. I am very lucky, and I can’t wait to start hosting people around my new (and expandable) table.
______________________________________
Tucker’s Corner
Welcome back Luca Guadagnino. I missed you. If you’re unfamiliar with this Italian director’s name I’m not surprised but maybe you’ve heard of some of his work? Call Me by Your Name? I Am Love? If you follow the movie world closely these films were unmissable events as they were glimpsed at festivals before making their way to wider audiences. Call Me by Your Name was a huge and infamous hit back in 2018. It did so well in fact that it gave Guadagnino a blank check by most studios to go out there and make them another box office smash. Those hits didn’t come though. He followed up CMBYN’s success with a remake of the Italian horror classic Suspiria. He followed that with a coming-of-age cannibal drama Bones and All. Neither were successful or frankly, all that great. All of my favorite work from Guadagnino came before CMBYN. I Am Love and A Bigger Splash preceded CMBYN’s sweat drenched ideas of love and loss and all three form a pretty excellent trilogy. What I’ve learned from Guadagnino’s successes and failures is that despite his talent, the man needs movies where he can revel in the raw emotions of his characters. His last two films had to focus too much on arthouse violence and gore to really allow him to home in on what really gets his blood going, the things we do for love. This is Challengers.
Challengers
What’s funny is the moment in his new film Challengers that I knew the Luca I’ve grown to love might be back involves a shocking bit of body horror not unlike what’s on display in Suspiria: a knee injury suffered in the line of duty by one of its three tennis-playing protagonists. This split-second bit of cartilage busting brutality registers more powerfully than anything in his last two films because of how close to the emotional arc of all three main characters it lands. Written by novelist Justin Kuritzkes—and inspired as much by Serena Williams’s infamous rage-drenched 2018 U.S. open loss to Naomi Osaka as by such polyamorous classics Jules and Jim and Y Tu Mamá También—Challengers arrives as a proverbial “movie for grown-ups,” which is to say it’s a study of sexual power and frustration without a superhero in sight.
Unlike most of Guadagnino’s filmography, Challengers feels like commercial entertainment as opposed to an art film. The camerawork by Thai master cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom features numerous CGI-assisted shots in which tennis balls scream past our eyeballs at warp speed, as well as point-of-view shots from the perspective of the ball itself. During one key love scene, in order to underline the stormy nature of the feelings on screen, Guadagnino conjures up an actual storm that results in one of the best visual dramatic sequences I’ve seen in years.
Challengers runs 131 minutes but moves swiftly thanks to the ace editing by Marco Costa. The cutting has to be clever in order to complement the screenplay’s structure, which serves and volleys its way through a 13-year timeline to chart the formation—and mutation—of a seductively symbiotic (and dysfunctional) three-way relationship whose participants are all equally in love (and hate) with themselves and each other. In terms of chronology, things begin with a meet-cute: soon after ascendant future singles superstar Tashi Duncan (Zendaya) meets junior doubles champions Patrick Zweig (Josh O’Connor) and Art Donaldson (Mike Faist) at the afterparty for the U.S. Open junior championship, she invades their hotel room and starts pushing their buttons. After coaxing the boys into some mutual fooling around—sitting up straight like a line judge between her groping suitors—she proclaims that she’ll consider dating the winner of their upcoming one-on-one match.
“I don’t want to be a homewrecker,” Tashi says before she goes, but that’s exactly what she wants to be, and not just because it turns her on. An obvious prodigy with Serena-sized ambitions, she’s drawn to talent, and senses that Patrick and Art are too cozy to get the best out of themselves. Since the characters are all ego-stroked up-and-comers exploring their adult emotions—and their perfect, precision-tuned bodies—such naughty manipulation is all in good fun, a night to remember when they’re older. Cut to the present tense, though, and the trio’s mixture of intimacy and solidarity has exploded, along with their respective personal and professional aspirations. Both men have had a crack at dating Tashi, with Art managing to stay in her good graces as a long-time partner—but only because her own career has stalled. Patrick, meanwhile, has fallen off the map, only to strategically resurface at a podunk tournament where he vows to be a thorn in his old pal’s side. Suffice it to say that questions of winning and losing look very different in one’s 30s than in one’s teens, and that the same competitive spirit that drives people toward greatness can also plunge them into misery.
Defeat and disarray are qualities squarely within O’Connor’s wheelhouse. Here, he inhabits Patrick’s impulsive nature with just the right amount of self-deprecating humor, as if he’s amused by his own running tendencies toward sabotage. Muscles bulging and eyes gleaming with appetite, he’s the ideal foil for Faist’s slender, soulful Art, who’s too anxious about his talent (or lack thereof) to ever consider becoming his own worst enemy: where his rival laughs off encouragement, he thrives on it, but never seems fully satisfied by the results. Each man is, in his way, a sitting duck for Tashi, whose supreme passion is not for sex, but tennis—a sport whose pounding back-and-forth nature offers the only plausible outlet for her pugnacious stamina. Watching the young Tashi stalk around the court in between points is like National Geographic channel footage of a predator in action.
With Tashi, Zendaya could finally have the beginnings of a serious acting career on her hands. There are scenes that work beautifully, like the early make-out routine, which vibrates with sly, deadpan eroticism. I don’t like speaking negatively about films I’m reviewing so I’ll leave it here: Zendaya does terrific work with a very simply written character. If anything, it’s the screenwriting that lets her down here but there’s true talent on display and I can’t wait to see her sink her teeth into a truly meaty role in the future.
It’s clear the script has a sharper focus on the boys. This would be fine if Challengers were as attuned to the rituals of male rivalry as, say, Ron Shelton’s White Men Can’t Jump—still one of the great American movies about competition, and one that uses sports as a kind of divining rod to tune into larger cultural frequencies. That movie shows us, time and again, how basketball contains multitudes: it’s a showcase for fashion; a melting pot for racial tensions; a series of contrasting and complementary philosophies. Challengers tries to make the same all-encompassing point about tennis—a thesis that frames life (and love) as a series of hard, hostile volleys, and reduces the world beyond the court to a blur. In purely kinetic terms, the climactic tennis match here may be the best-executed scene of Guadagnino’s career, surpassing Suspiria’s grotesque ballet recitals. This film won’t go down in history as a classic but I believe it fully succeeds at what it sets out to do and the result is a movie as engaging as a great game of tennis.
Chris on another fishing expedition
Hey folks – last August I spent 7 days camping and fly fishing in southwest Alaska and I just posted a long YouTube video that captures some of the fun.
Alaska 2023 Seven Days on the Arolik River
If you only have time for 2 minutes of pictures, here’s the photo montage at end of the video.
The video is best on a large monitor but will work on a phone. We caught silver salmon which were returning from the Bering sea to spawn, rainbow trout that eat the salmon eggs, dolly varden/arctic char, and grayling. The salmon were incredibly strong and their color range from dime silver to deep red was amazing. This was a camping trip so each morning we tore down our camp site, then fished about 10 miles of river during the day, then set up the camp site that evening -- it was a real physical challenge for me and a great adventure. For this video I moved to a more sophisticated post-production software product that has been a lot of fun to work with and hopefully it shows in the end result.
Enjoy!
Chris
I was lucky enough to spend 7 days fly fishing in southwest Alaska on the Arolik River close to the Bering Sea in Aug 2023. Will and Cody were our two intrepid guides from FishHound Expeditions, and they got the four of us onto lots of silver salmon, arctic char/dolly varden, rainbow trout, and grayling (catch and release). The weather was rainy and cold for a few days and then cleared up in the back half of the week which is when I shot most of this footage. This was one of the more physically demanding trips I’ve done because we tore down camp each morning, floated/waded all day, and then set up camp at the end of the day. I learned a ton and had a great time and if you listen closely, you can hear my happy fatigue in certain parts of the video. The guides and my fellow anglers were very patient with me as the least experienced person on the trip, but I caught far more fish than I expected, especially the incredibly powerful silvers. I fished single handed 8 weight and 10 weigh rods and got most of the strikes on streamers, poppers, and nymphs (with very little success using dry flies or mice). Some of the footage and pics were taken by Winston Wellborn from FishyBrand (@winstonwelborn) so thanks to him for letting me use his content (and for inviting me on the trip in the first place). We used DJI action cameras and a DJI drone as well as a GoPro. It was mostly 8-bit footage, and the weather swings resulted in some very dark footage so I tried my hand at color correcting where I could using the incredible Davinci Resolve Studio. I have a long way to go to be proficient at post-production but I’m relatively happy with the result given what I had to work with. Timecodes 0:00 - Introduction 0:05 – Fly in 0:46 – Silvers Everywhere 5:12 – Drone Montage 1 6:08 - Rainbows 8:25 – Amazing Silver Hole 10:52 – Drone Montage 2 11:26 – Dolly Varden and Grayling 14:01 – Silvers in the Sun 16:29 – Picture Montage Big thanks to @SimmsFishingProducts and @Fishpondusa and @Sageflyfish1980 and @ScientificAnglers and @RIOPRODUCTS and @GalvanFlyReels for making the great gear I used on the trip and to @DJI for creating excellent drones and cameras and @DAVINCIRESOLVESTUDIO and @BlackmagicDesignOfficial for the amazing software for all the post-production work.
______________________________________
_______________________________
MONTHLY HEALTH REPORT CARD: of an 82-year-old male.
April, 2024
Natural Physiological Change
Nothing out of the ordinary.
Grade: B+ down from an A-
Hamstring-discomfort is a way of life.
Weight-Lifting
With the TEDx talk @ Babson College behind me, I am able to regain a daily rhythm that includes my weight-lifting. BTW: here’s a link to my 12-minute TEDx address:
Watch Dom's TEDx talk here!
Weight-lifting: Grade: B, up from March’s C.
Exercising
I’ve re-introduced the RCAF (Royal Canadian Airforce Exercises) into the days when I’m not weight-lifting. This is all gain since I have no prior history of sustained stretching exercises.
Grade: A+
Walking
April was decent.
Grade: B-, up from D
Illness
The violent ointment regime for my face that my dermatologist put me through to eliminate any traces of pre-cancerous cells is over.
Grade: B (A higher grade waiting for several months to make sure the rough facial-skin patches that are symptoms of pre-cancer don’t reappear.)
Injury
The aftereffects of the scalding I suffered in early April have disappeared. A second-degree burn.
Grade B+, a grade sure to improve if I am careful in the next several weeks.
Weight
(Using only weight as a measure of health is simplistic. I know. Health care specialists consider an entire range of metrics. Two commonly used indicators are the Body Mass Index that takes into account a person's weight and height. And Body composition, considering the distribution of body fat and muscle mass rather than solely focusing on weight. But this analysis of the state of our health is meant to be doable in our regular day’s living. We’ll use simple body weight and take other steps when we feel things going really poorly.)
My weight for April has been poor.
Grade C
Oral Health
I have no teeth or gum issues.
I brush and floss regularly.
Get a cleaning twice a year.
Grade A+
Substance Abuse
My morning coffee is now 10oz of a half-caffeine free and half regular brew. I am drinking two glasses of wine at dinner time and never at other times.
I have started taking a third mind-bending substance: gummies. See the entry under ‘Sleep’ to see what and why.
Given that I have added gummies to my daily intake, my substance abuse grade takes a dip:
Grade: B
Stress Management
Things are going well. The discovery of gummies is an excellent add to my regimen.
Grade: A-, a tick up
Sleep
My sleep entering a shaky period, 2 to 3 hours a night, I resorted to taking gummies.
Why haven’t I tried these in the past? I’m taking one per night.
Not experiencing any hallucinations.
Am experiencing absolutely perfect sleep, now running on three weeks. I have gone from two hours sleep to six hours sleep. It is wonderful.
Grade: A+
Regularity
I maintain a decently balanced diet which is not only good for my weight-control, but also for my regularity.
Grade: B+
Memory
I do a lot to stay mentally active. One of my primary activities is writing. I recently published a book I edited, I work on this magazine, a website I am constructing for the North End is in its alpha testing phase, and I have completed my novel.
My other major memory activity is meal preparation, from the planning of the menu, the shopping, and the preparation which sometimes involves me in writing recipes.
Yet, despite all I do, memory loss is real and a nuisance: I am the subject of those 1,000 jokes about walking into a room and wondering what I’m doing here.
Grade: B+.
______________________________________
Chuckles and Thoughts
Antonym is an antonym of synonym. But synonym is not a synonym of antonym.
______________________________________
Six Word Stories
“Silent night. Screaming mind. Broken heart.”
_____________________________________
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 our Gen Z columnist, Kat C: an email to her father:
I was in the paper twice today, which is an all-time record.
Once was for being one of the nine out of 300 that correctly guessed the date the state budget would finish, and the other for photo credits for a recent press conference we put on. Cool!
City & State: These City & State readers knew the budget would be done on 4/20
Kat Capossela, senior press officer for New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, joked that “some might say I had the ‘fore’-sight and 20/20 vision” to make the right guess.
Photo Credit: Kat Capossela and Ayman Siam/Office of NYC Comptroller
This from Ralph I, a dear friend and frequent contributor to the zine:
As I grow older this becomes clear, pain, loss and tragedy can bereft one of their desire to live, but if one is lucky enough to find people that connect him to who he really is; pain and loss and tragedy will only fuel his passion to give and to love.
Thank You.
And then Ralph sent this:
As I grow older this becomes clear, pain, loss and tragedy can bereft one of their desire to live, but if one is lucky enough to find people that connect him to who he really is; pain and loss and tragedy will only fuel his passion to give and to love.
This from dear friend Angie T: we go back 70 years:
Dom, I just viewed you TED talk at Babson on the subject of Magic. I loved it!!
Your delivery was open, honest and to the point. It brought my memory of the North End of old, the smells, the play, and the camaraderie of those who participated (as we all did in those days) back as if it were yesterday and, yes, magic did play a role in our lives because we were raised with confidence and a sense of opportunism.
Although we haven’t “broken bread” in some time, we should. If you have time, send a note and we can put a date, time, and place in our calendars. Stay well.
Best……
Angelo Troisi
New Management Concepts, Inc.
__________________________________
Last Comment
Why do university administrators insist on setting deadlines? On brandishing weapons of mass destruction: Suspension! Expulsion! Come on. The protestors are our own. They are questioning. Challenging. Growing. Fostering democracy. Humanity. They do not deserve to be treated like criminals.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!