Daily Entries for the week of
Sunday, June 21
through
Saturday, June 27
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It’s Saturday, June 27
Welcome to the 809th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Artichoke, in a allotment in Tourcoing (Nord), France.
Jamain - Own work
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2.0 Commentary
What I love most about cooking is trying new recipes.
I love artichokes.
But stuffed artichokes , however delicious, are an awful lot of work and
calories.
So I thought it out and came up with this:
Cut the stem off the large artichoke.
Braise the artichoke in 1cup water at an active simmer for 30minutes.
Reduce the water to ¼ cup and
add 3TB fresh lemon juice, ¼ cup dry white wine, 1TB parmigiana cheese grated and/or small bits of cheese rind, garlic, olive oil, salt, and freshly-ground pepper.
Braise the artichoke an active simmer for another 30minutes, or
until, when separated, the leaves separate easily from the piece.
Check the braising liquid often during the braise and
add white wine if the liquid reduces too quickly.
When the artichoke is done the liquid, now a sauce, should have some body
and should be just enough serve as a sauce to pour over the artichoke.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought
and the thought has found words.
~Robert Frost
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
So.
We’ve been getting so much mail
we must rethink how to publish it.
Today, we’ll publish several very different emails, but all from Sally C.
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This one is a reaction to a post on the American Revolutionary war’s 1st Regiment of Rhode Island.
Dear Dom,
It's interesting that you show the drawing of the soldiers of the American Revolution. Indeed, the 1st Rhode Island was a most notable regiment. Another segment of American history that's been largely ignored.
Phillip and I saw a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, DC, some 25 years ago (the name of which I'm not sure I remember correctly - "Reunion," I think).
The story is of a ragtag troupe of actors that travel the country some time after the Civil War.
It's a musical about a play set during the Civil War. Included in their company are African Americans. In the play (within the play), the black man is portraying a fugitive slave who wishes to join the army to fight for the Union, early in the war, but is refused enlistment for reasons of race.
(Black enlistments were not allowed until 1863.)
The black man grumbles his lines: "The Negro soldier was good enough for George Washington, but isn't good enough for George McClellan." {General George McClellan commanded the Army of the Potomac during 1862.)
Sally
Blog Meister responds: Sounds like a lot of fun.
And another piece from Sally C and her friend, Greg, on WorldReader:
Hi, Greg,
My friend, Dom Capossela, who ran a high-end restaurant in the North End back in the 1980s-1990s, posted this biography about his son Chris in his blog today. (Dom posts daily, quite a feat. He has not missed a day in over two years, even when taking month-long road trips.)
I'm sending this to you because of the information about Worldreader and its library functions. Do you know of Worldreader? If you'd like to contact Chris directly about it, I can ask Dom to send you his contact information.
Dom's blog is at http://www.existentialautotrip.com/june-2020/2020/6/20/june-21-to-june-27
Sally
To which Greg responded:
My goodness, Sally, what a connection to have! I was not familiar with Worldreader but just visited their site. It looks like a great organization. The timing is doubly interesting as I am in the midst of reading on information societies and the importance of making the global information society a force for good. It's pretty interesting stuff and dovetails nicely with Worldreader's mission. If you could facilitate contact that would be tremendous! The best address to use for this is gregpc@librarylandproject.org. I'm trying to be good about keeping all of the various streams and threads I am working on in their proper channels . . .
Thanks for thinking of me,
GPC
Blog Meister responds: I’m enclosing the appropriate contact information for Greg.
To which Sally responded:
Thank you, Dom, and thank you, Chris! This will definitely make Greg's day!
Sally
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Made a fried chicken dinner with cousin Lauren.
Used only the drumsticks, my favorite part.
It was delicious.
Also experimented with braising a large artichoke.
It was also delicious.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
The globe artichoke also known by the names French artichoke and green artichoke in the U.S., is a variety of a species of thistle cultivated as a food.
The edible portion of the plant consists of the flower buds before the flowers come into bloom.
The budding artichoke flower-head is a cluster of many budding small flowers (an inflorescence), together with many bracts, on an edible base.
Once the buds bloom, the structure changes to a coarse, barely edible form.
Another variety of the same species is the cardoon, a perennial plant native to the Mediterranean region.
Both wild forms and cultivated varieties (cultivars) exist.
Today, cultivation of the globe artichoke is concentrated in the countries bordering the Mediterranean basin.
The biggest producer is Italy with Spain a distant second and Egypt behind Spain.
In the United States, California provides nearly 100% of the U.S. crop, with
about 80% of that being grown in Monterey County;
there, Castroville proclaims itself to be "The Artichoke Center of the World" and
holds the annual Castroville Artichoke Festival.
More recently, artichokes have been grown in South Africa in a small town called Parys, located along the Yaal River.
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It’s Friday, June 26
Welcome to the 808th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama
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2.0 Commentary
Today’s 1.0 Lead Picture and 11.0 Thumbnail deal with social justice.
A good place to remind ourselves of
the contribution to the understanding of social justice
made by the deaths of Sacco and Vanzetti.
And to pitch again for the insertion of Sacco and Vanzetti
whenever a reminder of the contributions of
Italian immigrants to the American experience.
Their story is so much closer to
the experience of the vast majority of Italian immigrants.
And so much more relevant to today’s pleas for social justice.
You can’t fool Mother Nature.
The bravado of Texas, Florida, Arizona, California and
all other states whose leaders thumped their chests
and yelled at Mother Nature,
“We’re opening!
“We’re brave!
“We can ignore the wimps that are our medical professional!”
won them temporary support from a segment of their constituencies.
It wasn’t much of a contest.
Ultimately, unnecessarily, tens of thousands of people will die
from this strident trumpeting.
You can fool some people a lot of the time but
you can’t fool Mother Nature.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
By working faithfully eight hours a day
you may eventually get to be boss and
work twelve hours a day.
~Robert Frost
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Chris Capossela re: Microsoft’s efforts towards social justice.
That company is not new to the game.
….You can check out my LinkedIn profile for some of the diversity work I’ve been doing with Microsoft…
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriscapossela/detail/recent-activity/posts/
and also with my wife Leigh, as we have been the co-chairs of the United Way of King County this year raising money for their programs which serve people in need in this community. Many of the people in need are African American and Hispanic.
United Way:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/building-community-united-way-king-county-chris-capossela/
(In addition,. Check out these initiatives in which Chris and Microsoft are involved).
Worldreader:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/life-changing-power-reading-chris-capossela/
Equal Justice Initiative:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-inclusion-journey-from-redmond-montgomery-chris-capossela/
Love
Chris
Blog Meister responds: Very impressive, indeed.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Wednesday night I enjoyed a dry-aged steak with chopped mushrooms and
broccoli rabe in garlic-oil on the side.
Lovely.
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11.0 Thumbnail
The Equal Justice Initiative
My Inclusion Journey from Redmond to Montgomery
Published on December 5, 2018
Chris Capossela
Chief Marketing Officer at Microsoft
In March 2017 my wife took me on a date night to a Seattle Arts and Lectures series. The speaker was a social justice activist, lawyer, and author named Bryan Stevenson, and he blew the audience away. I was moved and inspired as he talked about his work helping the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned. I went home that night and started reading his book, Just Mercy.
As I was absorbing the lessons in Bryan’s book, I was also on a personal journey at Microsoft working to make our team (and our company) more inclusive. We were starting to have necessary but sometimes uncomfortable conversations across various forums to try to learn from each other. In June, I shared the five most important lessons I learned that fiscal year and proximity powers empathy topped my list and was inspired by Bryan’s book. In July, I gave a speech dedicated to inclusive marketing to our sales force, which was a major personal step for me. In August, my leadership team decided to make inclusion one of just three core priorities, signaling an even deeper commitment. Bryan's stories helped me think beyond the halls of Microsoft and provided historical context that gave more power to the small steps we were taking each day.
What I didn’t know back then was that I was about to plunge headfirst (with my leadership team) on an experience that pushed me far outside of my comfort zone and ultimately lead to an incredible journey of learning and listening.
In April 2018, I read a slew of press coverage about the opening of The Legacy Museum and The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. These are two new sites in Montgomery, Alabama created by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), which is Bryan Stevenson's non-profit organization. EJI built these sites as part of its mission to have an honest conversation about our shared history of racial injustice in America and its enduring and damaging effect on African Americans. When I read the press coverage, I knew I wanted to visit these sites in person one day and I started wondering if I could do this as a leadership offsite focused on inclusion.
The notion of taking the team from Redmond, Washington to Montgomery, Alabama felt unorthodox to say the least. It wasn't until I finally suggested the idea to my business manager that I realized how much I really wanted to make it happen. I wanted us to “get proximate,” as Bryan says, to our country's painful history, and to have a shared experience that could impact us as individuals and maybe as a leadership team too. I felt excited and unsure. People might question why we’d travel across the country for an offsite. What did studying slavery, segregation, and mass incarceration have to do with Microsoft and cloud computing?
After a big Microsoft customer event in Orlando, I flew to Montgomery with my business manager and HR partner to visit the museum and the memorial. We were quickly convinced that this unorthodox idea could be a powerful experience for my leadership team. We were all in.
After months of planning, November 5th was finally here. It was mid-term election day in the United States, which made the day feel more poignant, with voters across the country hoping their leaders would be elected. Leading up to the trip, everyone read Just Mercy, and watched Bryan’s Ted Talk, as a way to be more prepared for what we would experience together.
Kiara, Elliot, and Bre from EJI were our excellent hosts that day making the experience unique. Everyone in our group had the time to make their way through the museum at their own pace. Although the museum has a relatively small footprint, it’s packed with history, interactive experiences, powerful stories, animations, videos, and pictures that were both beautiful and heartbreaking. The main room is anchored by a timeline mural that starts with slavery then moves to segregation and finishes with mass incarceration. Everyone was quiet as they read and listened. Since it was my second time through the museum, I was able to see details I missed the first time. I also observed that even though we were a group, each person was having their own individual experience.
After three hours in the museum, we made our way to lunch. For some people this was a time to process by interacting with each other. Others sat quietly, preferring to process by reflecting alone. Seeing the impact the museum had on the team made me feel incredibly relieved but also eager to compare observations and find some level of a shared understanding of what we witnessed in the morning. It became clear to me that this was going to take a lot more time and conversations than I had anticipated.
After lunch we walked up to The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. It was good to get some fresh air, and the Alabama sun did not disappoint. We stopped at many of the historical markers that EJI has erected across the city.
The memorial was stunning. The first glimpse of it as you walk through the entrance has an incredible visual impact. As we made our way through the memorial, we looked at the hanging, rusted blocks that resemble coffins and read the names of the people who were lynched and the counties and states where they were lynched. There are small signs describing the events that led to a person or a family being lynched. It’s a somber and evocative space. Our group was once again quiet and introspective.
I became more acutely aware, not just of the terrible acts carried out in many counties across the country, but also of the larger-scale systems failures that created the environment where these atrocities could go on for years. Often our efforts to be more inclusive focus on the small personal interactions we have with one another many times a day. But leaders also have a responsibility to improve the systems that an organization (or even a country) has in place as well.
When we finished at the memorial, we were met by the charming and effervescent Michelle Browder, our Montgomery tour guide for the next 90 minutes. With hugs, smiles, and laughs, Michelle gathered us onto her bus. Michelle's family has a rich history in the area, and she brought a personal perspective to our tour, which included her hopefulness about the future. She brought us to the Dexter Avenue Church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a pastor, and then we visited the house where he lived. It was special to realize the importance of this one church and one house in the history of civil rights in America.
After Michelle’s tour, we headed to the Equal Justice Initiative offices to meet with Bryan. I felt honored that he would take time out of his schedule to meet with us. Bryan shared his journey and experiences along the way. He talked about how he handles a bad day, why he doesn’t think he’d pursue life as a politician, how he stays open to new ideas despite having so much on his plate already, and how Microsoft could help with his mission.
It was a phenomenal day of learning and an emotional rollercoaster. I’m still processing what the day will mean for the team and for me. I think I’ll be processing for a while, but some learnings are already very clear.
First, taking my entire leadership team from Redmond to Montgomery was a great decision. While it pushed me outside my comfort zone, I'm thrilled we did it. I need to keep pushing myself to do unorthodox things because that’s where the best learning takes place and that’s probably where the best ideas for change come from.
Second, having a shared learning experience about our country's history leads to very different kinds of conversations than traditional business discussions. In talking to my team members, they each had their own personal learnings, but the trip also gave us a shared experience that we can use to make progress on inclusion.
Third, getting close to people who inspire and challenge you is amazingly motivating, and it can be a great change agent for yourself and your team. Team leadership experiences are often short-lived in their impact. But this one feels different. Bryan and his team gave us a great gift in sharing their work, their passion, and their perspective. They helped me think more about the systems of our organizations, and my opportunity and responsibility to make them more inclusive.
Finally, I’ve learned that there is value in bearing witness to someone else’s reality even if you don’t know exactly what actions you’ll take next. It’s so easy to want to jump in, to try to make a difference, to create some new program that will change our diversity metrics or make us feel better by doing something. Believe me, I’ve got a long list of ideas now, in large part because of this trip. But I also think it’s valuable to not rush to action. There’s richness in taking the time to listen and learn from people who have committed their life’s work to something very distant from your area of expertise. This trip, at its core, was about us bearing witness to someone else’s painful and inspiring journey and reflecting on how it can and should impact each of our own journeys to come. Who would have thought a simple date night could lead to that?
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It’s Thursday, June 25
Welcome to the 807th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
Chris Capossela on Microsoft campus
Brian Smale and Microsoft
- https://news.microsoft.com/exec/chris-capossela/
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2.0 Commentary
Will Europe open for an October visit?
Am hopeful to revive a trip-plan begun two years ago and never executed.
The plan included three and a half days in Florence and
three and a half days over the Tuscan countryside,
under the Tuscan sun.
Recently I’ve received “Remember whens” from several people.
Some really nice things went on.
On Tuesday, in a conversation with my son Chris,
I asked him about the storm presently enveloping Microsoft, to wit:
In a tweet, Artist Shantell Martin called out Microsoft and McCann Erickson advertising agency for
asking her to create a Black Lives Matter mural on the boarded up Microsoft Store on 5th Avenue
while it's 'still relevant'”
As Microsoft chief marketing officer, Chris responded to Martin's tweet:
“Shantell, on behalf of Microsoft, I want to first apologize for the insensitive language used in our letter. There is no excuse. We recognize it was wrong and I am sorry. I respect you may not want to discuss this further, but if you are open to it, I’d like to connect directly.”
It's never all a bed of roses.
The irony is that Microsoft, under Chris’ tutelage,
has been way out in front of the social justice movement.
Oh! Well.
Those in the know, know.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose,
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only knows
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose -
But were always a rose.
~Robert Frost
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Howard D:
Somewhere along the line, in the musty annals of how I learned to cook, despite a mother who couldn’t, I must have tried every conceivable method – each of them supposedly canonical, or authentic of the terroir, etc. etc.
I settled, and pretty much have stuck with, what I always understood was the standard method in French bistros.
A relatively small bird; for any number of reasons I usually don’t buy a chicken, whole, that weighs more than 3.5 to 4 pounds.
Handle it as little as possible, with gloves to prevent cross-contamination, oil or grease it up, fresh ground pepper and salt over and under, stick something savory in the cavity, put it breast-side up on a rack in a pan, filled with liquid you wouldn’t mind going into a sauce, and place in a very hot oven (somewhere between 425 and 450 F) for about an hour, until it’s done… check doneness by the loosness of the thigh joint, and tipping the bird up and making sure clear juices run from the cavity.
I don’t care about the skin, we don’t eat it. I figure it’s there for the fat to keep the bird moist.
It’s always done, to perfection, in sometimes slightly less than an hour, and sometimes five or ten minutes
more.
typical bird, one of dozens and dozens, from 2014
I’ve told you the story of roasting my first duck. Probably the stove in our apartment was defective, but it certainly was a low and slow experience. Too low, clearly, and it took eight hours. And I didn’t know (I was 23 at the time and a professional grad student) about the high-temperature finish. So it looked kind of pale. Tasted fine. Not great. Just fine. Probably made me a skeptic for the rest of my life.
I do smaller cuts, steaks, fillets of fish up to two pounds, by searing in the pan first, and then putting the pan in the oven, but even then, the oven is very high, and everything is done in ten to fifteen minutes.
I can’t say anything is ever not juicy, tender, and delicious.
I wouldn’t try to proselytize anyone that my “techniques” are the best, and guaranteed. They work for me, and that’s all I usually prefer saying.
And like you said about Cazalis, he knew what he was doing.
I think it’s just different strokes… and no harm.
xoxo
h
Blog Meister responds: No one who’s eaten your food questions the results of your style.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Cousin Lauren came over for a three and a half hour feast of Lobster Diavolo and spaghetti.
So much to talk about.
And dinner was awesome, too.
We worried every morsel of flesh out of the chopped up crustaceans and
spooned down every bit of the sauce.
Life is good.
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Chris Capossela (born 1969) is Microsoft's Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President of Consumer Business.
Capossela is a board member for a 501(c)(3) global non-profit called Worldreader, an organization that provides people in the developing world with free access to a library of digital books via e-readers and mobile phones
Capossela was born and raised in Boston's North End.
He worked alongside his two brothers, mother and father at his family's Italian restaurant.
His family lived in an apartment above the restaurant.
Capossela began attending Harvard in nearby Cambridge, MA, in 1987.
Capossela graduated from Harvard University in 1991 with a B.A. in economics.
He joined Microsoft immediately after graduating, moving from his hometown of Boston to Seattle, WA.
Capossela, his wife and two daughters live in Seattle, Washington..
In 1997, Capossela was selected for a two-year assignment as Speech Assistant to Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
In 1998, Capossela was doing a demo on stage with Bill Gates at the COMDEX Conference when the computer became unresponsive and displayed the Blue Screen of Death.[2] In 1999, Capossela relocated to Paris to lead business operations for Microsoft's Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, before returning to Redmond in 2001 to assume leadership of Microsoft Project.
Capossela was promoted to Corporate Vice President of the Microsoft Office division in 2003, a role he held until 2011, when he took on leadership of Microsoft's Consumer Channels Group.
In 2014, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella promoted Capossela to Chief Marketing Officer, overseeing
marketing across consumer and commercial audiences for all Microsoft services and products, corporate communications, brand, advertising and research.
Capossela took over the role from his predecessor Mich Mathews.
In 2016, Microsoft consolidated its marketing and consumer sales organizations into the Marketing and Consumer Business group, adding business growth for consumer and device sales, Microsoft Advertising business and Microsoft Stores to Capossela's responsibilities.
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It’s Wednesday, June 24
Welcome to the 806th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
American soldiers at the siege of Yorktown
Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger
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1.1 Lead Picture
1781 watercolor drawing of American soldiers from the Yorktown campaign, showing a black infantryman from the 1st Rhode Island Regiment on the far left
Jean-Baptiste-Antoine DeVerger - http://dl.wdl.org/2960.png
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2.0 Commentary
So nice to see the activity in the streets.
Especially nice that Massachusetts is a national leader in
the fight against the corona virus.
Kudos to our political leaders with
the foresight and stamina to guide us through.
My weight has stayed amazingly steady.
The skip-lunch entirely regimen has worked well for me,
even when I am not paying attention to calories
except to stay with my dietary routine.
Were I to focus on eating more fish or
smaller dinner portions
I’m sure I could lose a little bit more.
But I’m not ready to sacrifice any part of a diet
that itself is the product of continuous adjustment to age.
My torn knee tendon is healing but
far from healed as
it occasionally unceremoniously reminds me.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
Suddenly, quietly, you realize that –
from this moment forth -
you will no longer walk through this life alone.
Like a new sun this awareness arises within you,
freeing you from fear,
opening your life.
It is the beginning of love, and
the end of all that came before.
~Robert Frost
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Monday night I ate a veal chop.
Simply slow-roasted then
broiled/seared for 4.5 minutes.
Had some asparagus leftover.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
The 1st Rhode Island Regiment (also known as Varnum's Regiment, the 9th Continental Regiment, the Black Regiment, the Rhode Island Regiment, and Olney's Battalion) was a regiment in the Continental Army raised in Rhode Island during the American Revolutionary War (1775–83).
It was one of the few units in the Continental Army to serve through the entire war,
from the siege of Boston to
the disbanding of the Continental Army on November 3, 1783.
The unit went through several reorganizations and name changes,
like most regiments of the Continental Army.
It became known as the "Black Regiment" because it had a large number black soldiers in its ranks.
It is regarded by some as the first black military unit, despite the fact that
its ranks were not exclusively black.
The "Black Regiment" (1778–81)
Blacks had been barred from military service in the Continental Army from
November 12, 1775 until February 23, 1778.
Rhode Island was having difficulties recruiting enough white men to meet the troop quotas set by the Continental Congress in 1778, so
the Rhode Island Assembly decided to pursue a suggestion made by General Varnum to enlist slaves in the 1st Rhode Island Regiment.
Varnum had raised the idea in a letter to George Washington,
who forwarded it to the governor of Rhode Island without explicitly approving or disapproving of the plan.
On 14 February 1778, the Rhode Island General Assembly voted
to allow the enlistment of "every able-bodied negro, mulatto, or Indian man slave"
who chose to do so, and
voted that "every slave so enlisting shall,
upon his passing muster before Colonel Christopher Greene,
be immediately discharged from the service of his master or mistress, and
be absolutely free."
The owners of slaves who enlisted were to be compensated by the Assembly
in an amount equal to their market value.
A total of 88 slaves enlisted in the regiment over the next four months,
as well as some free black men.
The regiment eventually totaled about 225 men;
probably fewer than 140 of these were black.
The 1st Rhode Island became the only regiment of the Continental Army to have segregated companies of black soldiers;
other regiments that allowed black men to enlist were integrated.
The enlistment of slaves had been controversial, and
no more non-white men were enlisted after June 1778.
The unit continued to be known as the "Black Regiment" even though only white men were recruited to replace losses,
a process which eventually made it an integrated unit.
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It’s Tuesday, June 23
Welcome to the 805th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
BlogMeister and boys sharing cooking duties
Time past
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2.0 Commentary
If I said that I had Father’s Day dinner alone
one might say
“So lonely.”
It wasn’t.
Well, perhaps a modicum.
But the day was replete with social events.
My son Dom got me hooked up with a political event his son was hosting.
Looking forward to seeing grandson Dylan in action and
to participate in a part of his life.
Son Mino worked out another chapter of a wine tasting that will keep us close for the next three months.
Son Christopher published today’s Lead Photo and put it where I’d have to bump into it.
A nice surprise when I did.
And daughter Kat spent an hour on the phone with me
updating me on her doings, asking advice on life issues, taking suggestions on improvements to her kitchen.
And listening.
Friend Grace was with me a good part of the day.
Lots of friends called and we caught up.
By 5.00pm,
when I sat at an outdoor table at Itadaki’s
with my 1200 pages of George Washngton,
I appreciated the silence.
Mostly.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
The best way out is always through.
~Robert Frost
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from so many:
Happy Father’s Day.
Blog Meister responds: Thank you, my friends.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Father’s night dinner was at Itadaki’s
an outdoor Japanese café way up on Newbury Street.
Not an elegant meal (the slices of fatty tuna were ragged like
the sushi chef had been hitting the sake)
and poorly served
(after waiting an unconscionable time
all my separate three courses were brought out at the same time).
And yet I’d try it again.
The food was good.
Reasonably priced.
Nice table.
But I’d order only one course at a time.
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11.0 Thumbnail
Raising children.
What an event.
What a whirlwind.
What planning.
Truly needs a village.
Toni and I spent all of our non-professional time on them.
And yet needed Auntie Marie to do their laundry and clean the apartment and babysit.
And Grandma Olga to baby sit and provide some meals.
And Grandpa Cammie to amuse and provide some colorful vocabulary.
And Rico to provide some chauffeur duties.
And New Jersey Grandma and Grandpa to host them whether they visited us or we them.
And the dozens of friends to help with their extracurriculars.
Kind of overwhelming.
What a relief when the last goes off to college.
And then Kat was born.
That was 21 years ago.
When it started again.
Happy Father’s Day.
It was.
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It’s Monday, June 22
Welcome to the 804th consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
book cover of Citizen: An American Lyric
Source (WP:NFCC#4)
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2.0 Commentary
Without any tinkering, my schedule harmonizes well with the heat.
My walk begins mid-morning and I’m back in the apartment by 1.00pm.
While I may go out briefly during the afternoon, it’s only briefly.
My second long walk takes place after dinner.
I think I’ve been inoculated with the riposo bug,
riposo meaning being at rest,
in Italy meaning that three-hour break between noon and three during which
businesses traditionally close.
The world of Boston, Massachusetts is beginning to stir.
Shops are opening.
Department stores are opening.
Restaurants are open for outside dining and
will open tomorrow for inside dining,
at least at 50% capacity.
People are in the streets.
While many people are walking about without masks,
many more obey the law.
Public toilets are becoming more available.
Hand sanitizing stations, while not ubiquitous, are certainly plentiful.
God bless us, going forward.
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4.0 Chuckles and Thoughts
The brain is a wonderful organ;
it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and
does not stop until you get into the office.
~Robert Frost
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5.0 Mail
We love getting mail.
Send comments to domcapossela@hotmail.com
This from Gary B:
Thanks again for posting about Echobatix and our survey to help determine what features visually impaired people want first.
Any post that leads with a photo of Lindsay will draw people in.
She’s wonderful to work with, too.
And it helps that she and I share a love of bats.
It’s hard at a time like now to run user tests, but
we keep plugging along, and
we’re looking forward to making our indoor navigation technology available as soon as we can.
- Gary
Blog Meister responds: What a great project to be involved in. God bless you Gary. And Linda and the others.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Saturday night we ate in La Voile.
A predictably good dinner.
The staff is professionally trained to cater to their guests.
We had a beet salad, mussels, a duck liver pairing, and a trout.
The trout was a first step away from veganism.
We’ll search out meats offered from well-caring producers
to encourage her return to a balanced diet.
In the process, we may find ourselves eating less meat.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Stitcher, Pinterest, Pocket Cast, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
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11.0 Thumbnail
Citizen: An American Lyric is a 2014 book-length poem by American poet Claudia Rankine.
Citizen stretches the conventions of traditional lyric poetry by interweaving several forms of text and media into a collective portrait of racial relations in the United States.
The book ranked as a New York Times Bestseller in 2015 and won several awards, including the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, the 2015 NAAPC Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry, and the 2015 Forward Prize for Poetry Best Collection.
In her critique of racism and visibility, Rankine details the quotidian microaggressions African-Americans face,
discusses controversial incidents such as backlashes against tennis player Serena Williams, and
inquires about the ramifications of the shootings of Trayvon Martin and James Craig Anderson.
She intersperses her writing with images of various paintings, drawings, sculptures, and other digital media to "render visible the black experience".
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It’s Sunday, June 21
Welcome to the 803rd consecutive post to the blog,
existentialautotrip.com
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1.0 Lead Picture
An ornate house with palm trees in front
The last announcement of the emancipation of slaves.
Ashton Villa — landmark villa and historic house museum in Galveston, southeast Texas. A circa 1859 Italianate style residence, that was one of the first brick buildings in Texas. It served as the local Confederate and then Federal military headquarters for Texas during the Civil War. On the National Register of Historic Places in Galveston.
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2.0 Commentary
The day’s off to an optimistic start:
warm weather yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
I plan to take advantage of it with a couple of long, slow walks.
Received mail suggesting Enrico Fermi replace Christopher Columbus
as an Italo rallying point.
I certainly prefer him to Columbus, Fermi actually being Italian, speaking Italian,
becoming a naturalized American citizen, none of which Columbus was or did.
One impediment to naming him is his distance above the rest of us.
He was a rare generational genius with little commonality.
Accentuating the difference, most of us emigrated from
abject poverty and ignorance.
He emigrated so his Jewish wife could escape persecution.
Our experience was to claw our way up from digging tunnels
in the hope our children would have better lives.
E Fermi’s work was breathtaking.
Sacco and Vanzetti are who we were, even if
we may disagree with their politics.
I read yesterday that a Boston suburb
voted to change the name of their school from Columbus.
I read a response from an organization that
purports to represent Italian interests.
This group is furious,
considering such a decision to be an affront to Italos.
It’s not.
It’s a rejection of the evil that came out of Western civilization
as it stormed ashore washing everything pre-existing away.
It’s a subtle business separating the truly heroic explorer from
the exploiter.
But that’s not what got my goat.
Cursorily reading what was written,
the tract revealed uncontrollable anger and
heated, distorted decision-making,
including implicit threats.
Made me sick.
Ugliness that marked my childhood
reared up to remind me that
growing up Italian was not all milk and honey.
My friends,
pipe down.
Listen.
To the hurt;
to the cries for equality, social justice.
What Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti have come to mean to the world.
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4.0 Chuckles/Thoughts
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
~Robert Frost
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
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5.0 Mail
From a black American woman,
“I hardly heard of Juneteenth before this year’s riots.”
Blog Meister responds: Till now, it’s hardly been mentioned.
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6.0 Dinner/Food/Recipes
Friday night’s dinner party changed players at the last moment but it all worked out.
We shared a artichoke from Limoncello and a marinated artichoke from Bricco.
Then angel hair and pesto.
And slow-roasted grilled/seared veal chop.
All delicious and terrific company.
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7. “Conflicted” podcast
Conflicted, by Dom Capossela, is a spiritual/fantasy/political story about a sixteen-year-old mystic-warrior conflicted internally by her self-imposed alienation from God, her spiritual wellspring, and, externally, by the forces of darkness seeking her death or ruination.
Today we post Chapter 22 in which Dee presents to the world her personal take on Christian mysticism.
The podcasts are also available on Sound Cloud, iTunes, Twitter, and Facebook.
Search: dom capossela or conflicted or both
Here’s the link:
https://soundcloud.com/user-449713331/sets/conflicted-dom-capossela
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11.0 Thumbnails
Juneteenth (a portmanteau of June and nineteenth; also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States.
Originating in Texas, it is now celebrated annually on the 19th of June throughout the United States, with varying official recognition.
Specifically, it commemorates Union army general Gordon Granger announcing federal orders in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, proclaiming that all slaves in Texas were free.
President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation had officially outlawed slavery in Texas and the other states in rebellion against the Union, almost two and a half years earlier.
Texas being the most remote of the slave states had a low presence of Union troops after the American Civil War had ended, thus enforcement there had been slow and inconsistent before Granger's announcement.
Although Juneteenth is commonly thought of as celebrating the end of slavery in the United States, it was still legal and practiced in two Union border states (Delaware and Kentucky) until December 6, 1865, when ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery nationwide.
Celebrations date to 1866, at first involving church-centered community gatherings in Texas.
It spread across the South and became more commercialized in the 1920s and 1930s, often centering on a food festival.
During the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, it was eclipsed by the struggle for postwar civil rights, but grew in popularity again in the 1970s with a focus on African American freedom and arts.
By the 21st century, Juneteenth was celebrated in most major cities across the United States.
Activists are campaigning for the United States Congress to recognize Juneteenth as a national holiday. Hawaii, North Dakota and South Dakota are the only states that do not recognize Juneteenth, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Of the 47 states that do acknowledge Juneteenth in one way or another, Texas, Virginia, New York and Pennsylvania are the only ones recognizing it as an official paid holiday for state employees.
Modern observance is primarily in local celebrations.
Traditions include public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, singing traditional songs such as "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" and "Lift Every Voice and Sing", and reading of works by noted African-American writers such as Ralph Ellison and Maya Angelou.
Celebrations include rodeos, street fairs, cookouts, family reunions, park parties, historical reenactments, and Miss Juneteenth contests.
The Mascogos, descendants of Black Seminoles, who escaped from U.S. slavery in 1852 and settled in Coahuila, Mexico, also celebrate Juneteenth.