IM Italian magazine issue winter 2021/22

WINTER 2021 / 2022

THE LAW OF KARMA Before Di Maggio, the Yankees had Lazzeri

By Fabrizio Catalfamo

PIANOMIRRORING A new way of self-knowledge through music

Susanna Casubolo interviewed Italian actor

Gianni Rosato

ON THE COVER

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WINTER 2021/2022

CONTENT 4 Book: The law of karma by Fabrizio Catalfamo / 9 Psychology: Adolescents an fluid sexuality by Rosanna Mazzitelli / 13 Art: Cufrini by Rocco Zani / 25 Art: Luisa Melis and the Italian author Song, by Roberto Sironi / 30 Art: Pianomirroring by M. G. Pia / 36 Heritage: Before Di Maggio the Yenkes had Lazzeri by Joe Guzzardi / 46 On the cover Susanna Casubolo interviewed Italian actor Gianni Rosato / 59 Parli Italiano? Speak as you eat by M. G. Pia / 64 People By Franky in New York / 69 chefs The Wanderful cuisine By Laura Rangoni / 75 The sironi Method The time machine has not engine By Roberto Sironi.

41 Mafia Italo - Americana “ The Atlantic Pact “ by IM Team

In the United States it branched out more and more, until it was divided into five families (Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese), whose leaders sat in a revisited “dome” with a clear Sicilian flavor. From the aforementioned Genovese family of Lucky Luciano - which extends its criminal power in all the five boroughs of New York, we arrive at that of the Gambinos, founded by Salvatore ‘Totò’ D’Aquila in 1910, and - according to the investigators - beyond Frank Calì is headed by Domenico Cefalù and Joseph Corozzo, but also by Joseph Lanni.

THE NEW CRIME MAP

I’M ITALIAN MAGAZINE ( ISSN 2688-0601 - ONLINE 2688-061X) IS PUBLISHED QUARTETLY BY HOFFMANN & HOFFMANN LLC, 32082 PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA, USA. © 2021 HOFFMANN & HOFFMANN INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED.

BOOK

THE LAW OF KARMA

By F. Guzzardi

Sometimes there is no justice among men and you feel tossed about, like a leaf in the wind, and find no other explanation that refers to your logic or that of Plato, Socrates, or that which allowed you to live in this world according to principles cultural heritage of our millenary society.

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CHAPTER 1

THE RULES

And then, the only philosophy that can explain the events in any way, is the law of karma ... and you have to accept a karmic anal fuck.

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BOOK

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t had been 2 years since I last asked to speak and that the situation was embarrassing, especially for the children. The last spark was, as always, for the children, once again indirect victims of their mother's frustrations. The mother, Pathological Narcissist - Borderline (the two pathologies are very close), the place, the court of Daytona Beach, Florida.

Rule # 1 Never come home with bags full of money (unless your beloved is already in Morpheus’ arms).

A

fter 4 years of my divorce from an abusive woman, I am still in court trying to reduce alimony and child support which represent 110% of my gross income. Yes, you read that right ... 110%.

The reasons for this punishment? The ex-wife, during the final judgment, had declared that her husband came home in the evening (while she coming back from shopping) with bags full of cash.

So ... no, don’t laugh, not yet!

Rule # 2 Do not believe to anything you have learned in life and generally served to solve many problems, logic does not belong to the world of Florida family law.

The poor woman and mother of 2 children who spent 9 years of her life not working but looking after the children of which one in the autism spectrum and the other ... “we do not know” (poetic license of the adverse lawyer), has the right to an emergency compensation before the final trial, of at least $ 800 weekly, considering that, the husband has always worked and (Fuck him) will continue to do so because he is in good health. The poor and kind woman, on the other hand, suffers from numerous diseases including some vaginal discharge.

I

n addition to this, the children, previously taken to a safe and secure place, while on the advice of my lawyer (which we will discuss later) I had reported the gentle woman for “domestic violence on presence of the children”, then had to send back the kids to the gentle woman who, she was staying in an apartment paid for by me and at the end of the rental contract. But let’s go back for a moment to the reasons why I found myself without legal help in the preliminary trial for emergency relief.

Rule # 3 Before choosing your lawyer, even if (as I thought) a trivial and simple divorce, take care to check at least the criminal record of the attorney in question!

GERARD VINCENT MURIELLO, 747 S. RIDGEWOOD AVE., SUITE 102, Daytona Beach, publicly reprimanded following an April 5 court order.

Further, Muriello’s conditional admission to The Florida Bar is extended until May 1, 2012. (Admitted to practice: 2006) Muriello violated the terms of the Supreme Court’s May 2006 order of conditional admission based on substance abuse and psychological issues. (Case No. SC10-682)

Considering my case of elementary simplicity, I chose the first one that was close to home and that was relatively cheap (the term cheap should be banned for lawyers). His name? Gerald Vincent Muriello (yes the lawyers all have three or four names … will it be a tradition?).

Well, I didn’t know it yet but Mr. Muriello would be the source of all my problems while my beloved consort turns to a lawyer such Armistead W. Ellis Jr. (also three names …and half. Basically the more names you have the more you are considered).

Instead, two days before the scheduled appearance before the judge, Mr. Muriello decides to withdraw, and asks permission to the judge, who will sign it (completely illegal) on the same day of the hearing .

So, I find myself on the appointed day, alone in front of a judge ( and a particularly aggressive and racist lawyer , with my hesitant language, and a total ignorance on the subject judicial.

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BOOK

Rule # 4 In a divorce case, cannot be said your beloved ex to be a psychopath, because (according to Daytona Beach lawyers) the judge will turn against you.

However, the reason why you divorce, will become nothing on the and of the Don Corleone of the Forums Mr Armistead W. Ellis jr.

The babysitter hired hastily due to my working time, a 75 old lady, in front of the court will turn into my fiery lover., and myself in a rich, stingy business man. And the kind wife?

Well..the kind wife will become a poor mother forced to beg for bread, from a tyrant husband. All this while, our Judge (Zombie) is asleep.

In the best interest for children.

Rule # 5 Before a trial, make sure that the judge records the trial itself, but more importantly that he is breathing and still alive.

Needless to say that the first trial only served to bring me to my knees economically, so it was impossible to hire a lawyer, and I had to give the children back to their mother. The only exception allowed, the relocation requested by the mother, to go and live in New York with the children, denied, because Florida is rightly the state of residence and there was no reason to grant it. But for this, the Don Corleone of the Forums ( Armistead W. Ellis Jr.) would have taken care of it . And he did it the same night, suggesting to the kind ex-wife, to call the police and stating that, she was very worried about me (Sic) because, she thought that, I could commit suicide on that same night, and the gentil wife she would not want her two children to grow up without a father...(unless they do it in New York).

Rule # 6 Never let the police enter your apartment at 2 AM, because even if you have no intention of killing yourself, you will start soon to thing about.

CHAPTER 2 WILL FOLLOW ON THE NEXT ISSUE

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CONTRIBUTORS Susanna Casubolo

Roberto Sironi

Susanna Casubolo she is an Italian writer with 2 investigative genre novels published. Psychologist by “INTERVIEWED ITALIAN profession, she practices and lives in his own Rome.

ACTOR GIANN ROSATO” The book “Fall into the void” exists in the Italian language version with the title: “Nel Vuoto” both published by Hoffmann & Hoffmann.

THE TIME MACHINE HAS NOT ENGINE

Milanese artist, musician, painter, writer and filmmaker. Roberto Sironi has performed in France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and in England at the Barbican Center, where he participated with Ennio Morricone at the “Only Connect”.

A native Californian, Joe taught English as a Second Language in the California public school system for two decades after a successful career in Wall Street investment banking and finance. He’s worked with several nonprofits through the years and was a candidate for Governor of California in the 2003 recall Gray Davis special election. As seen in:Medium, USA Today, The Hill, Patch, Washington Times, AZCentral.com, The Daily Caller, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, RealClear Politics, Daily Herald (Chicago, IL) and mor

Joe Guzzardi

BEFORE DI MAGGIO, THE YENKES HADE LAZZARI

Maria Grazia Pia

PIANOMIRRORING

Poet writer, teacher of Italian and Latin languages

Fabrizio Catalfamo

THE LAW OF KARM

Blogger, writer, founder of I’M Italian magazine.

ADOLESCENTS AND FLUID SEXUALITY

Rosanna Mazzitelli Psychologist, Psychotherapist, Expert in juvenile distress and eating disorders. EMDR therapist.

Rosanna Mazzitelli

Rocco Zani

“CUFRINI , AN ARTIST WITH PERSONALITY” PAGE

EDITING

Art critic and journalist, Rocco Zani (Frosinone, 1956) coined for itself the role, less identifying, of the chronicler of the facts of art. Collaborator of some specialized magazines (Arte, Arte In, Paintings and Sculptures, Archive) for years he has held numerous art criticism columns on Il Tempo, Ciociaria Today, Qui Magazine.He lent his collaboration to the Gagliardi Gallery in San Gimignano and the Umberto Mastroianni Foundation.

Contact: rzani56@libero.it

Maria Teresa Cusano

PHOTOS CREDITS SERAFINO GIACONE, SARA MONTALBANO, GIACOMO CESTRA , MARTINA GAROFALI, ROBERTO SIRONI, , GIANNI ROSATI TEAM.

PHOTOS ADOBE STOCK

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PSYCHOLOGY

ADOLESCENTS AND FLUID SEXUALITY

BY ROSANNA MAZZITELLI

Bein gat e t i chanme. Aetnager i th ges, hous s rea a t o and lly a to baet requ usan doub comp expe ire nh e w and ts, a th licate of lirfimente decid d e ma d. It sions aone sit ousand affec de u is in nd b uatio tive p of p fact ehav ns and t i relahtysicalh, e perioors iona psyc d l cha honges .

One of the thorniest issues for a tee nager is sexuality. In this period, in fact, the bo ys they are called to redefine the relati on shi p with their body and to consolidate their gender identity.

PSYCHOLOGY

Until

a few years before, everything was easier, the parents decided on everything and in spite of that the moment you might not like the adult authority that ran your life, at least you didn't have to respond to questions, dilemmas and internal conflicts that society and life put before us becoming teenagers.

It is important for teens to learn to experience sexuality as a conscious choice in that this represents an important step towards one's autonomy and towards the construction of one's own identity.

Compared to this, however, the boys often find themselves facing an internal conflict doubts about their sexual orientation. They ask themselves many questions about what they like, to love people of the opposite sex or their own sex, or both.

It is not easy for one adolescent being able to immediately have clear ideas about this and often this creates strong ones discomfort both with respect to perceived confusion, which could lead to a block in the relationship with the other, but also of the big fears related to the expectations that society has towards them.

Yes, he often questions what is right for himself but also acceptable to the world around him. If you think that already the very first observation of the external genital organs of a child at his birth determines his belonging to the male or female gender, it is easy to realize how much this it will convey a series of expectations and beliefs deemed appropriate to its gender.

PSYCHOLOGY

It

is important to underline that one of the fundamental aspects that defines who we are is “identity sexual ”, that is the subjective dimension of one's being sexed. This identity consists of four elements: biological sex (being born male or female); gender identity (the selfawareness and the experience of belonging to the male, female or ambivalent gender); the gender role (everything an individual does to show himself his status as a man or woman, for example through clothing or attitudes); sexual orientation (i.e. emotional and sexual attraction towards the opposite sex, the same sex or both).

Although the construction of identity is a process that accom panies the human being throughout his life, adolescence is the acute phase in which one needs to define oneself, becomes urgent.

In fact, in this period the adolescent, being in a transition phase, needs to experiment to understand what most belongs to him in the various spheres of life, and instead he often finds himself clashing with a society that recognizes two gender roles, male and female, and individuals are expected to behave in a manner consistent with biological sex.

This assumption can only be close to a adolescent who is in search of himself and who lives a period of sexual non-definition

in which homosexual behaviors and / or fantasies are part of the growth process. This goes with it one of the typical characteristics of adolescence which is the transgression that was experienced in the past through opposition to politics and a break with cultural and social aspects, today instead it seems to have moved into the sexual sphere. This leads today's teens to experiment sexual behaviors often without a real and deep awareness, but with the main purpose of attention and exhibitionism.

Accomplices the media, an excess of virtual life compared to the real one and always a sexualization earlier, today’s teens reject any standard sexual definition that makes them feel limited and often referred to as “Fluids”.

The term “Sexual Fluidity” was coined in 2008 by the American psychologist Luisa Diamond for highlight how sexual orientation (heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality, pansexuality) can be flexible and therefore undergo modifications in the course of life. The concept is then also extended to sexual identity itself which is an ever-changing process.

Experimental sexual fluidity allows adolescents, as well as adults, to be flexible in the sexual response, according to the contingent situation, allowing to experience the

changes in one’s sexuality.

Researchers have highlighted numerous cases in which individual report unexpected changes, both transient and lasting, in their sexual attractions, for that matter which pertains to sexual identity and behaviors. Sexual fluidity allows the teenager to experience that sexual orientation does not provide a rigidity in the choices and desires that you can try, and it is up to the individual to understand whether or not the sexual experience experienced is something isolated or that can instead describe one’s identity.

PSYCHOLOGY

T

herefore, considering that adolescence is the phase of life in which exploration is king, it is important that an individual can experiment and express their preferences, tastes, entering into conflict with those of the other and managing to integrate the differences in a functional way to the own well-being.

In this framework, as mentioned, the experimentation of sexuality is part of it integral, so teenagers can be pushed to try new experiences in all verses sexual orientation before being better defined in one of them.

Certainly the risk for a teenager, perhaps more fragile than the others and in particular a conflict with himself itself, being "fluid" could be to get bogged down in a situation of indeterminacy, failing to understand what he really feels and what the experiences are that more nourish it and are functional to itself.

In this case it can be very useful the support of the adult that helps him to orient himself towards choices of wellbeing not only of the sexual type but in all spheres of life.

An important lesson that an adult can pass on to today's teenagers is that they don't exist "better or normal" sexual orientations, but, as psychology has long decreed,any way of experiencing emotional and / or sexual attraction towards others is equally healthy.

Sexuality can be experienced as open and changeable and does not necessarily have to be reduced to a word, the important thing is to live it in a conscious and consensual way in order to be able to represent a real source of psychological well-being.

ART

CUFRINI AN ARTIST with personality

by Rocco Zani

ART

“From the icons of literature and philosophy to the giants of music and cinema contemporary. In a fatal contamination - never disunited - which is primordial soup and anthology of our time. Without prejudice or fictionalized utterances. Each image it is a remote testimony and a symptom of becoming”.

ART

CUFRINI AN ARTIST with personality

by Rocco Zani

C

ufrini, (multifaceted artist) recomposes the semblances entrusting the alphabet, universal language, the sign of identity, the form, shadow and lightning. And the gallery of faces and gazes is not just a summary of intentions rather an irreplaceable breviary - memory - of a common journey ... The interview retraces its recent and remote history; the beginnings, the becoming, the present time in one original narration capable of “laying bare” one of the most original and rigorous artists of contemporary art scene.

Umberto Cufrini, or more reasonably CUFRINI. I would take a trip back with you; starting with your last show which turned out to be a highly significant moment and which has met with enormous success with public and critics. Here, I would like you to tell us more specifically about this event.

It is an exhibition that comes from respect, esteem and I would say from the complicity that has been created with the inhabitants of an almost magical place, the village of Castro dei Volsci. This special relationship was born since I made the portrait dedicated to Nino Manfredi for the centenary of his birth. An extraordinary artist, actor, director, playwright, refined chanteur

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who crossed the cinematographic and theatrical history with great rigor and originality. Everyone had it for this job a really intense attention and gaze, perhaps underlining the historical character of these people: hospitality, generosity and great industriousness.

Thanks to this we are already working on new projects. In the people of this place I found the enthusiasm and the desire to grow, fundamental characteristics that I look for everywhere I go and that pushed me to create this dislocated exhibition using various spaces of this charming village. Exhibition that summarizes the last decade of my artistic research and which finds in the portraits of great personalities the pretext to evoke the great human and cultural heritage that we have inherited, thus avoiding leaving it die from myopia or superficiality.

The portrait, or rather, the portraits.

ART

A

journey made up of great reflexive stops. I think about works dedicated to the great figures of cinema, music and culture in general. First of all to Nino Manfredi, to Marcello Matroianni, to Fabrizio de Andrè. Works that have found accommodation in the places of origin of these characters and that appear as iconographic images rehabilitated and revisited by your language expressive.

The portrait of Manfredi, like that of Marcello Mastroianni in Fontana Liri and of Fabrizio de Andrè in Genoa, have this as their goal: to revive in the people the pride of having had artists as fellow citizens of whom still today thanks to their talent, to their specific qualities, we are here to talk about them and to celebrate them for what they said and did. I would like this to trigger in us a process of healthy emulation and interest of those qualities and knowledge that we have inherited from them.

A path, this of the “portraits”, which seems to lead to a program of more full breath. You are working on a project that sees writers as protagonists Sicilians of the last century. What will happen?

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ART

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s in e Art t n i F of rea ared demyraits of ghey appe ts a c A t r t e r T-shi at th n on nd st po ture e the fir from thew on the urants a p l I u c N k a , s I o a t d d s h R n e s m e n i l CUF lent ps, r n to iso a ated o cal RTO1. Gradu 7 he begabsent”, s Factor ta, hair shoples, Trev E B 0 a es X /a BBBBBBBBBB UM in UMBERTO 197 om 20CUFRINI UMBERTO CUFRINI sent s: in the blic spaccelona, N rn nGRADUATED Fr e “preIN o1971. .

BORN IN SCULPTURE AT THE ACADEMY OF r u n e B a o p i h SCULPTURE at , or AT in THE ,B BORN IN 1971. GRADUATED OF FINE ino ties. TIN ceACADEMY nBEGAN rosIN l locFROM e F a n FINE ARTS FROSVISION. 2007 HE TO MAKE THE r i l a u o l a s g n FROM ARTS IN FROSVISION. HE THE FIRST or BEGAN nu 2007 n, F TO MAKETHE persoe most uOF er M a, PERSONALITIES. FIRSTOF PORTRAITS “PRESENT MilaTHE “PRESENT ingGREAT s PORTRAITS GREAT PERSONALITIES. / ABSENT”, SO/ o h t p n o e in SObCALLED, p G ABSENT”, FROM y n CALLED, FROM res i IN THE MOST UNUSUAL LOCATIONS: IN THE wornep THENAPPEARED THEY APPEARED t stoIN c THEN THEY THE MOST UNUSUAL LOCATIONS: IN THE n co TALENT X FACTOR SHOW ON THE T-SHIRTS WORN BY POP SINGER e. m o R

MORGAN, OR IN PUBLIC SPACES, HAIR SHOPS, RESTAURANTS AND CONCEPT STORES IN GENOA, MILAN, FLORENCE, BARCELONA,

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ART

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“

ART

Sicilian people must be proud and live this as a condition of pride and redemption through the voice and words of his “great ones men”.

I love the quote of the mafia victime Peppino Impastato: If you taught beauty to the people it would be a weapon against resignation, fear and silence. Here, I do not want to resign myself to believe that a better world is possible. To those “men” I pay homage with my “portraits”.

True! I proposed to create portraits of Fellini and these letters.

Landolfi, Don Gallo in public spaces and St. Thomas, with the hope that they will be welcomed and realized because I believe firmly that art and culture stimulate people in emotional and intellectual growth. Soon I will also propose a series of portraits of writers of a land that has the right to redeem itself as it has always been considered, almost exclusively, for aspects that tend to denigrate and demean it. I’m talking about Sicily and at the same time Verga, Tomasi da Lampedusa, Camilleri, Quasimodo, Pirandello, Sciascia, writers that of this land are the illustrious spokesmen in the world thus rejecting the fatal association with the mafia, crime, abuses of power that everyone remembers with superficiality.

As you rightly pointed out, the recent Castro dei Volsci exhibition, although not being an anthology, it collects the meaning and the artistic substance of your progress in the last decade. How has your path evolved over this time frame?

The first portraits, which I called present / absent, are from 2011. I started making them with stencil for the possibility (that the technique offered) to reproduce an image several times and quickly. Although considered current because it is used by many street artists like Bansky, we find this technique already in use in Egyptian hieroglyphs or in the Chinese vase decorations for more than two millennia. One is led to believe that the use of this practice leads to the cold seriality of the image, but I disagree.

I called this technique “Wordwork”. The cycle began with a work dedicated to Morgan for which later I made over one hundred portrait images for t-shirts worn by the musician in numerous television speeches. Soon after I made a LONG SERIES OF PORTRAITS IN MY STUDIO WITH THIS TECHNIQUE: Dalì, Picasso, Frida, Einstein, Chaplin just to name a few and, in 2019, the first mural in a public space. The image iconographic of Fabrizio de Andrè took shape in the Luzzati gardens in Genoa.

In synthesis, this is the evolution, for sometimes different paths and directions. But at the origin of this work it has the same precise intent: to reach a vast and different audience with the aim of making these portraits “pop” and with them reaffirm the poetics and values that their art has produced. The meaning of all my exhibition projects also follows this will. I have often exhibited my works in places that can be defined as “not deputies to art “because I firmly believe that art must live everywhere, among people, in an elsewhere not always identifiable and reassuring. Create curiosity, stimulate stories and reflections.

Asking questions, investigating, groped answers.

Back in time, our journey proceeds towards the prologue of your artistic existence but ideally marks the epilogue of our meeting. Your youth time, your training, your Masters.

I have experimented with it on canvas, paper and cardboard, wood, iron, aluminum, plastic derivatives and I’ve always got completely different results. Already in 2011 I was using letters in plaster to make works (initially) without a precise storytelling. connotation. Then I carried out a series of “experiments” which I indicated as aphorisms and followed by geo-graphisms. When I started the series of “portraits” with stencils I thought of making some using WINTER - 2021- 2022

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ART

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ART

T

he first of my teachers was my father. He had a construction mechanic company, a completely different branch from mine.

Yet he taught me to face things with dedication and passion, to make work a “place” of research, of interest, sometimes of selfdenial. The Art School - which I attended at jung age - had as Director and teacher Adolfo Loreti, great painter and man of great values. From him I learned the philosophy and approach to the meaning of life. He has been for me a second father. During the years in the Academy I follow in to attend courses on Theory of Perception and Psychology of Form by Sergio Lombard, an enigmatic artist whose works from the 1960s I love in particular.

With Patrizia Molinari - artist and professor of Art History - with whom I am still in contact, I deepened my knowledge of the great protagonists and movements of the 1900s. I loved Duchamp and Dadaism, Giacometti, Moore, Brancusi, Harp, Picasso, Klein, Fontana. But who, most of all, influenced my research and my youth production was undoubtedly Alberto Burri. I visited the big exhibitions held in Europe in those years BUT I NEVER FELT SUCH A POIGNANT EMOTION BEFORE AS IN FRONT of Burri’s works in Città di Castello. I find the experimentation of the material that he followed consistently, brilliant first “bags” to the last “cellotex”. An extraordinary path with a coherent and precise formal rigor. At the end of our dialogue, it intrigues me to urge you on an aspect that in seems significant in your human and artistic existence.

You have always chosen to live in a small town, far

from the metropolitan “routes” where market and communication rules are dictated. How much this position give you and how much does it take away from you... secluded?

I have had long experiences in Toronto, Barcelona and Naples, places that certainly offered me many stimuli and possibilities on an artistic level more than a small town like Frosinone, where I have a studio in the historic center. Yet in this territory I have always been supported by the mastery of great craftsmen, an aspect that I believe is of absolute importance. Let me explain better ... the great metropolitan “routes” have given me the opportunity to meet people of great depth; I had the chance to better disseminate, promote, exhibit and sell my work but at the same way they took away my concentration and skills in the creation phase. Therefore I think it is necessary first of all to do a good job (it doesn’t matter where) and later promote it elsewhere.

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LUISA MELIS

AND THE ITALIAN AUTHOR SONG INTERVIEW BY ROBERTO SIRONI

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Let's start from the beginning: who is Luisa Melis?

Roman, class 64. Classical studies.

Up to the age of 30 I was interested a little in all musical genres, from rock to pop to songwriting, following the artists both in the studio and live.

Then I entered as a Booking and Management manager in a record company that has always dealt mainly with world music. There I had the opportunity to grow a lot

He knew how to surround himself with collaborators who were equally “enthusiastic” about their work.

He was also able to create synergy between the artists themselves, which was not very usual in Italy at the time.

Just think of Ennio Morricone as an arranger of pop songs.

Many of the great Italian songwriters were born and raised with him: Conte, De Gregori, Venditti… He had a strong ability to see beyond, a rare gift like that of never giving 26

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and to deepen my knowledge of the management of an artist. At the same time I took care of the artistic direction and organization of various festivals up to the De Andre´ Award, which I have been following since 2004.

besides being your father?

A man who has always stubbornly followed his “artistic intuitions”, a man of great culture and broad views.

Your father, Ennio Melis, was one of the most important personalities in the Italian discography, father of songwriters, directors of the Italian RCA for many years and much more! What did he represent to you

up on first failures. I always like to remember Piero Ciampi, an artist he has always loved and supported, unknown in life and today instead celebrated for the great poet he was.

Lastly, I have always admired his intellectual honesty and sincere passion in everything he did.

What is the author’s song for you today? Does it still have a future or has it slipped into the shadows of Italian music and beyond?

I believe that the songwriters, who then make the “songwriting” in its most classic definition, that is with a particular attention to the “text”, are there and are also good.

However,

I believe that a musical fragmentation is being experienced, in the sense that many new musical genres and new approaches to music and the way of communicating have been born. Many are the "fashion" of a moment, others are or are taking root with more force. I think some of them do “songwriting” but leaning on different rhythms.

In recent years, at least as I see it, in Italy women in music are more complete and I would say even better than men… They have a more pronounced personality, more imagination and charm! If I'm not mistaken in the last four editions of the De André Prize, three have been won by women!… What do you think?

Do you think there is a difference between a songwriter and a poet?

I think in the end the situation is quite balanced.

Well, the singer-songwriter writes, not always, poetic texts. The poet writes poetry. Sometimes the two things coincide.

Speaking of the Fabrizio De André Award, let's talk about it!… How was it born?

In your opinion and your experience, what are the musical novelties that have an important weight in this current situation?

Honestly, I don't see any big news at the moment.

Is music in general still a noble art or is it just a market? What idea did you get?

I believe it is both. There are artists and there are "entrepreneurs" in the sense that they hope to make money without knowing even a musical note.

The Prize was born 20 ye ars ago in Rome. It is an award that tries to give voice, also through a whole series of collateral initiatives, to new songwriters, free to express themselves through their favorite musical genre. Over the years we have grown a lot and I believe that the Prize is now an important event in the Italian music scene, just think that in 2020 more than 1800 applications for participation were received.

De Andre´ was a poet, songwriter, but certainly a poet. So the “poetry” section has existed since 2004. Over the years I have also wanted to add painting, because 'De Andre's works are very suitable for reinterpreting on canvas.

Could the Award include other Sections in the future?

Yes, we're actually thinking about it. The next one could be “photography”, but I hope more will be added later.

What advice would you give to young Italian artists who would like to pursue a musical career?

To fight !!!

The Prize includes two other sections, one for painting and the other for poetry. Why?

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PIANOMIRRORING

ART

The Psycho-Analogical Music of Alessandro Sironi

“PianoMirroring is the art of translating the human personality into music in a composition that is born at the moment, while I look a person in the eye sitting in front of me. I get in touch, I observe her for a few seconds, establishing a mysterious dialogue and then I begin to tell her through the music.”

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Alessandro Sironi: pianist, composer and writer, but above all the creator of PianoMirroring and musical PsychoAnalogy. A new way of self-knowledge through music.

ART

BY M.G. PIA

What is PianoMirroring?

This technique becomes the beginning not only of a way to overturn the artist-spectator relationship, but above all an instrument of self-knowledge.

Each of us is a mysterious infinity, something that goes beyond the name, the profession he does, the social class, religious or political belief.

That “something” - which we can call Soul, I, character or personality - can be represented with music, precisely because music has the gift - and, in my opinion, the purpose - of highlighting the mystery that we are. I believe that music is the greatest representative system of the human psyche, and therefore music is an ideal tool to understand who we are beyond all superstructures.

What is the purpose of your work?

I try to summarize it with an image.

Our psyche is comparable to a museum full of works. A grandiose place that, however, has a problem, an unresolved question that has always been known to both the ancients and modern psychologists: practically most of that museum is in the dark.

Psychology calls that “unconscious” darkness, a mysterious, inaccessible area that hides a great deal of our identity. We practically do not contact much of who we are. Contacting our hidden identity is the purpose of all

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wisdom traditions: from the East - which that purpose calls Enlightenment - to the West, which defines it as Fullness.

To achieve all this we would need a switch to illuminate all the interior rooms, but we cannot find that switch. On the contrary, we only have a small lamp that illuminates some painting, and what little we see we call “me”.

Music, as I understand it today, is a form of light that, entering through the windows of the ears, can illuminate parts of us that we do not see and thus help us in a journey of knowledge that is the basis of all our deep longings.

In this sense I can say that the purpose of my work is to help people to know themselves.

How does this knowledge come about through music?

I use another image.

We all know the cliché of the singer who makes crystal glasses vibrate with his voice.

This happens because the glass vibrates at the same frequency as the singer’s note. If we take this physical phenomenon, called the resonance effect, and apply it to the psyche, we see that we also work the same way.

That museum I was talking about before is, deepening the metaphor, a museum of crystal works that are resonated from the outside world.

Every time we listen to music, fragments of our unconscious are solicited. The emotion we feel is the proof, the testimony.

All this happens when we listen to any music, but also when we look at a landscape or when we meet a person who “resonates”, we say. It always happens, but in the case of mirroring it happens in a specific way, that is, the event that resonates the psyche

is built on the individual person, and every reaction or inner movement of the person is seen and returned. This is how, in the approximately twenty minutes of mirroring, the person can have the strong impression of having been contacted deeply and in areas of himself that he may not have known about.Let’s say that mirroring is like giving back to the person a kind of perfume that he is wearing, but

maybe he doesn’t feel it anymore. Or maybe she has never heard it.

How do these meetings take place?

Mirroring can currently be done through private individual sessions or during public performances.

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ART

In the first case the person contacts me and comes to the studio, without an audience, in the second they are real concerts in which, instead of playing pieces of music normally intended, I play people, putting them one at a time in front of me at the piano . About 7 or 8 volunteers in the audience who make themselves available. The sum of the mirrorings, plus some collective experiences, creating unique and unrepeatable events, where every time I compose different music depending on who I am in front of. This is PianoMirroring.

And what, on the other hand, is Musical Psycho-Analogy?

Musical PsychoAnalogy is the whole conceptual and philosophical structure behind PianoMirroring, Through PsychoAnalogy, mirroring is no longer just the experience of a moment, but becomes an operational tool that aims to bring the person to three precise self-understandings, which I call gifts. Three gifts that this work can bring to the person.

Do you want to summarize them briefly?

The first I have already anticipated, or the possibility of putting the current state of the person to music.

That is, to give back the image of her current self.

At this point the person is placed in front of the mirror of the current state of his inner reality, and which I could define as the current state of the ego, or the sum of the wounds and internal strategies that the mind implements to survive in psychic territories. It is a snapshot of an inner position.

But this is not enough to bring knowledge into the person. Each of us is not just the current state, the what it is, that is, a potential lives within us, a more evolved identity, or a mature version of the self.

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The second cognitive gift is exactly this: to show the person that mature ego that they may not know, and to show them what their life would be like if they thought and acted on that ego.

And how does all this happen?

I used to compare our psyche to a crystal museum. We tend to always vibrate the same glasses, which are generally wounds and automatisms. Inside us it is as if we had a pianist who in every moment plays music that always activates the same glasses for us and starting from those glasses we look at the world, filtering it with that music.

In practice, that pianist creates in every moment the soundtrack on everything that happens to us. And that soundtrack is generally disharmonious. What happens if we put another one in place of that automatic pianist? What happens if instead of looking at the world with a certain music, we look at it with another and more mature one?

Within us, in fact, there are both ordinary glasses and royal glasses, that is, on the one hand, ordinary emotions and on the other, large areas of our psyche that concern bliss, compassion, gratitude. The Christian tradition calls those areas Paradise, which in psychic terms is a dimension of the being that inhabits them and which, if contacted, would make us feel satisfied, full, fulfilled.

So the second gift is to get the person to see a world from that position of perfection.

The third gift I have called the oracular gift, or the possibility of obtaining answers from the unconscious to any question we ask ourselves. This is the center of my work and probably the most pioneering and original intuition.

According to psychoanalytics, every person, event or object that belongs to our external world exists within us in the form of an image. On everything we see outside of us we project those images, and if those interior images are the glasses of our metaphor, then it means that music can come into contact with the images that are the foundation of our life, making them vibrate.

When we look at our home, the city we live in, the person next to us, our children: our physical eye sees objects, people, while our psychic eye sees those unconscious images, but we don’t notice them. If we project the image of a ship in storm on our house, then in that house we will feel bad, we will feel nauseous, we will feel as if we cannot find a safe haven. But the problem is not given by the house itself, but by the image that we carry within us and that the house takes care of showing us. This simple example explains the power of unconscious images to radically change our reality.

When we use music in an oracular key we go inside the psyche to ask questions that apparently concern external problems, such as that with the house or with our partner, but in reality we are asking our unconscious to reveal the images that are at the basis of those relationships. . Basically we are asking the psyche to provide us with the codes of our life.

sphere. Here it is too complicated to tell how this strategy works, but I can say that after almost nine years of seminars and symbolic readings, people have obtained great benefits and in most cases have obtained answers that have changed their perception of themselves and their problems.

Can PianoMirroring and Musical Psycho-Analogy be defined as healing tools?

If by healing we mean bringing knowledge and therefore healing from selfignorance, certainly yes. And in my opinion, until we heal from ignorance of the real processes that inhabit us, any attempt to feel good or to defeat our ills is illusory.

The truth makes you free, meaning the truth about ourselves: who we are, what are the real unconscious purposes, but above all the truth that we already know, that is, that everything that happens to us is intelligent and perfect. We just need to bring this truth to light and acknowledge it. As far as I’m concerned, music can be a great opportunity, as long as we return to music its value and its evocative and inspiring power, capable of showing us who we really are.

And how can all this be achieved?

In the case of the oracular strategy, through two-day seminars within which, through the effect of resonance and synchronicity, we are able to bring out symbolic images from the participants which are then transcribed and interpreted through a code. In this way we are able to obtain answers of great depth that go far beyond the answers we can obtain with the rational

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HERITAGE

Before Di Maggio, the Yankees had Lazzeri

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J

oe Di Maggio Frankie Crosetti Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto.

BY JOE GUZZARDI

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HERITAGE

Before Di Maggio, the Yankees had Lazzeri

By Joe Guzzardi

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y Sicilian-born father, Giuseppe, grew up in the Bronx. Like most other Italian immigrant kids during the early 1920s, Papà soon fell in love with the New York Yankees.

Since his family lived within walking distance of Yankee Stadium, Papà saw all the great Italian ballplayers – Joe Di Maggio, Frankie Crosetti, Yogi Berra and Phil Rizzuto. But before there was Di Maggio, the Yankees had Tony Lazzeri.

“Poosh ‘em up, Tony,” as Lazzeri became widely known among Yankee fans, was Papà’s favorite player.

Lazzeri was part of the 1927 famous Murderer’s Row, a slugging group that included the Yankee lineup’s first six batters: Earle Combs, Mark Koenig, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig and Bob Meusel.

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ome clarification is in order on the Murderer’s Row’s nickname origin. Thought to be derived from a row of cells in New York’s prison known as The Tombs, a jail that was reserved for the most heinous criminals, researchers uncovered the true origin. The Tombs had four tiers of cells. Convicted prisoners occupied the ground floor, and those awaiting 38

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trial had the other three: murderers, the second; burglars and arsonists, the third, and minor offenders, the fourth.

Seven- and eight-year old homeless children were thrown into cells with prostitutes, alcoholics and cutpurses.

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ut John Thorn, Major League Baseball’s Official Historian, delved into Charles A. Hemstreet’s 1899 book, “Nooks and Corners of Old New York,” and learned that Murderer’s Row referred to a lower Manhattan neighborhood once populated by “evil doers.” Eventually, Hemstreet wrote, the police drove out the criminals, and turned their homes over to Italians who were “excessively poor” and endured “a hard struggle for life.”

Lazzeri’s impoverished parents, Julia and Agostino, left Genoa in 1903.

On the ship’s manifest, Agostino’s occupation was listed as peasant. The couple settled in San Francisco’s rough and tumble Cow Hollow section, and by year end Anthony Michael was born. Fred Glueckstein’s Society for American Baseball Research essay, “Tony Lazzeri,” recounted the story of the young man’s expulsion from school at age 15, his promising semiprofessional boxing and sandlot

baseball careers.

Tony also worked with his father as a pipefitter’s apprentice and, while heating and hauling rivets, developed his powerful upper body. Strong shoulders and forearms helped Lazzeri hit a career 292 with 178 home runs, and drive in 1,194 runs. Lazzeri was the first player to hit two grand slams in a single game. In May 1936, Lazzeri set a new baseball record when he hit six home runs in three consecutive games, a feat that not even the great Bambino could match. During the same month, Lazzeri set an American League single-game record with 11 RBIs by hitting a triple and three home runs, two with the bases filled, in Shibe Park.

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t age 18, Lazzeri took his first step toward the major league.

Lazzari landed a contract with the minor league Salt Lake City Bees, but bounced around unimpressively for a few seasons. In 1925, however, Lazzeri blasted a then-minor league record 60 home runs. Suddenly, scouts took notice. But Lazzeri faced two roadblocks. First, anti-Italian prejudice was commonplace, and ethnic animus scared off the Chicago Cubs and the Cincinnati Reds.

HERITAGE

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econd, Lazzeri had a medical condition that he had kept secret for years; he was epileptic. But the Yankees’ savvy general manager Ed Barrow knew that about 1 million Italians lived in and around New York, all prospective ticket buyers. On March 30, 1926, the Yankees signed Lazzeri for $5,000. Barrow gambled on Lazzari and won. The first major league game Lazzeri saw was the first he played in, April 23, 1926, on a cold day at Boston’s Fenway Park in front of 11,000 fans. Lazzari was hit by a pitch, singled, walked, scored a run, and drove a run in, a successful outing for a 22-year-old rookie.

As the first great Italian-heritage Yankee, New York’s Italian fans took great pride in Lazzeri. Thousands of Italians experienced baseball for the first time, and returned again and again. At Yankee Stadium, fans’ “Poosh-‘Em Up Tony” rally cry implored him to slug the ball, preferably out of the ballpark. The New York Times compared Lazzeri favorably to another great Italian, Christopher Columbus: “He didn’t discover America, but Columbus never went behind third for an overthrow to cut-off the tying run in the ninth inning.” A manager’s dream, the all-purpose Lazzeri played all the infield positions with equal precision.

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arrow later wrote effusively about Lazzeri. “In our comeback from a calamitous seventh-place finish [in 1925] to a championship in 1926, there is one man who stands out above all others, Tony Lazzeri. He was the making of that ball club, holding it together, guiding it, and inspiring it. He was one of the greatest ballplayers I have ever known.” Lazzeri achieved his baseball successes despite his ongoing battle against epilepsy, and the phenobarbital he took, a drug that slowed his reflexes, and kept him from reaching even greater on-the-field heights.

By 1938, Lazzeri’s batting average had fallen to .244, and the Yankees released him. After brief appearances with the Cubs, the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers, in 1939 Lazzeri packed up and returned to San Francisco.

One failure, amidst a glowing career, haunted Lazzeri, and dogged him until the day he died. In the 1926 World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Yankees had loaded the bases, and Lazzeri was next up. Behind 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh, and with two out, a Lazzeri hit would put the Yankees ahead. But the Cards summoned Hall of Fame pitcher Grover “Pete” Alexander to the mound. Lazzeri fanned, the Cards won the game and the World Series. Later, Lazzeri recalled with disappointment that “there’s never a night” when an underinformed fan doesn’t approach him in a bar or restaurant to pester him about his one baseball failure.

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azzeri’s life ended too soon, and too sadly. In August 1946, Lazzeri’s wife found him slumped over their San Francisco home’s landing, dead from a heart attack at age 42. Many years passed before the Baseball Hall of Fame acknowledged Lazzeri’s greatness. The Veterans Committee inducted Lazzeri in 1991. As his Yankee teammate Crosetti said about Lazzeri, Tony not only was a great ballplayer, he was also a great man, a leader and a valued strategist on the diamond.

Joe Guzzardi is a Society for American Baseball Research member. Contact him at guzzjoe@yahoo.com.

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LOVE NEEDS SUPPORT THE SUPPORT YOU NEED - THE BRAS YOU'LL LOVE

SCAN THE CODE TO LEARN MORE OR CLICK

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MOBSTERS The “Atlantic pact ”

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MOBSTERS

MAFIA ITALO - AMERICANA The “Atlantic pact ”

By I’M Team

History

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iuseppe Esposito was the first Sicilian mafia to emigrate to the United States. He fled to New York (along with six other “cronies”) after killing, in series, 11 wealthy landowners, a chancellor and a deputy chancellor. He was arrested in New Orleans in 1881 and extradited to Italy. And it is in New Orleans that there was the first “excellent murder” in the United States. On October 15, 1890, city police superintendent David Hennessey was killed in what was called an “execution” by the FBI. Repression follows, hundreds of Sicilians are arrested and 19 of them indicted for the murder. They were acquitted but, the indignation of the citizens of New Orleans, led to a real lynching, with the killing of 11 of the 19 defendants.

From that moment the American mafia has evolved up to the constitution of “La Cosa nostra” (LCN), differentiated from the Sicilian “Cosa Nostra”.

But the key moment for American investigators was in 1956 when the 42

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New York State Police discovered a meeting of mobsters from all over the country in the small town of Apalachin.

Already mentioned Lucky Luciano (who founded the most important Genovese family), with the Americans who had already understood the violence of the mafia, we reached the seventies-eighties with the investigations of two judges and a policeman: Rocco Chinnici Giovanni Falcone and Boris Giuliano. It was Rocco Chinnici, at the time head of the Palermo Education Office, inventor of the anti-mafia ‘pool’, who entrusted Falcone with the investigation that would lead him to the center of drug trafficking between the two shores of the ocean: “A particular pride of mine - commented Chinnici - is the declaration of the Americans according to which the Education Office of Palermo has become the pilot center of the anti-mafia struggle, an example for other magistracies ”.

Giovanni Falcone focused his attention on the zips (slang term with which the new immigrants from Sicily are indicated in the United States) and on the ‘escaped’, i.e. those who had

survived the carnage ordered by Totò Riina to conquer absolute power in Cosa Nostra fleeing to the other side of the world. They were, in particular, the Inzerillos, allies of Stefano Bontade, and in turn distantly related to the American Gambinos.

The organization of ‘La Cosa nostra’

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n the United States it branched out more and more, until it was divided into five families (Bonanno, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese), whose leaders sat in a revisited “dome” with a clear Sicilian flavor.

From the aforementioned Genovese family of Lucky Luciano - which extends its criminal power in all the five boroughs of New York, we arrive at that of the Gambinos, founded by Salvatore ‘Totò’ D’Aquila in 1910, and - according to the investigators - beyond Frank Calì is headed by Domenico Cefalù and Joseph Corozzo, but also by Joseph Lanni. He has a ‘reserved’ man, brother of a private investigator. The Gambinos, whose name still resonates in Sicily, more precisely in the Ragusa area.

MOBSTERS

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hen there are the Bonanno who are one of the oldest mafia families, born in Castellamare del Golfo, in the last years of the nineteenth century. The Bonanno family had a moment of great power in the 1930s, under the leadership of Salvatore Maranzano, who was later killed by Lucky Luciano. They have always had strong interests in drug trafficking and construction, expanding into all five New York boroughs: Bronx, Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

The Lucchese family, on the other hand, was founded in 1922 by Tommy (born Gaetano) Reina. Today it extends between the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn and has among its illegal activities those of “street business”: robbery, usury and receiving stolen

goods. The last family of the “five” is the youngest, namely that of the Colombo family, founded in 1928

by Joe Profaci and always active, especially in Brooklyn.

Among the criminal activities that produce significant “revenue” are fraud in the construction sector, the classic drug trafficking, huge money laundering and the most innovative trafficking in which some families are specializing: the international pharmaceutical one. For the FBI, the greatest alarm is related to the “labor racket”, “in order to influence related companies and industries”. These include the Genovese and Gambino families, engaged in the labor racket in the “Port Everglades”. All this through the control of the trade unions and the

funds available to them.

The “five families” also boast various corporate properties, including restaurants, car dealers, construction and real estate companies, up to strip clubs and topless bars.

THE NEW CRIME MAP

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MOBSTERS

The military strength of families

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ccording to confidential documents from overseas which the AGI has been able to view - the Genovese family can now count on 175 members, that of the Gambinos on 165, the Bonanno on 132, the Lucchese on 121 and the Colombo on 90. added hundreds of other people. Each member, in fact, has the possibility to affiliate between 5 and 10 people. In all, therefore, there are between 3400 and 6800 affiliated to “La Cosa nostra” in the state of New York alone.

Relations with the Sicilian Cosa Nostra Once the veto imposed by Totò Riina fell, as early as 2003 Cosa Nostra Siciliana was divided among those who saw a new business perspective in overseas bosses (such as Salvatore Lo Piccolo, who hoped to climb the Sicilian dome with their help) and other bosses who, fearing retaliation, remained loyal to Riina. Up to the too “noisy” interest of Frank Calì, intercepted by American investigators. Calì had taken the reins of the Gambino family, which historically belonged to John Gotti, who died in 2002 after a conviction - among others - for twelve murders.

In the recent report of the Anti-Mafia Investigative Directorate to Parliament, it is noted: “The escapees from the mafia war of the Eighties have established profitable entrepreneurial activities in the United States and the proceeds would have been destined for the maintenance of families and associates who remained in Sicily”. But the overcoming of Riina’s diktats can be seen in action. The Bonanno family, for example, saw “meetings” in Castellamare del Golfo, for a substantial “reconstruction”. Again, the boss of Cosa Nostra in Sciacca (Agrigento), Accursio Dimino, who had planned his escape while traveling to the USA. And then still other affiliates who continue to travel to and from NYC. In addition to the recent arrests of the Palermo DDA in the “New connection” blitz.

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Cosa Nostra beyond New York City There are not only the “five families” in the US. In Buffalo there is the Todaro family, whose head is Joseph Todaro jr and the sub-chief is Domenico Violi. According to what was learned from the AGI, the “family” controls the business of Niagara Falls and Hamilton in Ontario.

In Philadelphia there is the Merlino family, with at least thirty members and constantly growing. Here, the recent release of the boss Joseph Merlino is increasing the mafia caliber of the family in the so-called “Tri State Area” (New York, New Jersey and Connecticut) and has a strong relationship with the Genoese.

Another important area for the Cosa Nostra is that in Elizabeth, the county seat of Union County in New Jersey.

Here we find the “strong family” of the DeCavalcante, with a hundred affiliates and an important contiguity with the Gambinos.

In Boston is the Patriarca family that controls drugs, gambling, usury and illegal labor racketeering. In Los Angeles we find some members of the Gambino family.

Finally, Miami: here the situation is very varied, a sort of “open city” with all the aforementioned families present and a “new entry”, the Caruana-Cuntrera, historic mafia family from Agrigento (known as the Rothschilds of the mafia or the bankers di Cosa Nostra) which has tentacles in the Miami economy, in absolute connection with the other “families”.

The Camorra does not have an autonomous structure in the US, but has historical ties with the Genovese family, some Italian affiliates have properties in Florida (particularly nightclubs).

According to AGI sources, the super fugitive Raffaele Imperiale also frequented these

MOBSTERS

shores, today the sought-after drug trafficker number one

of the Naples Anti-Mafia District Directorate (considered by many to be the largest drug broker of organized crime capable of flooding the Neapolitan dealing squares with cocaine ). With Imperiale also Attilio Eugenio Repetti - a Genoese broker arrested for the first time in the mid-90s and, after an acquittal, ended up in handcuffs again in 2016 on charges of cleaning up the proceeds of the Camorra narcos.

“One thing between them” to return to the words of Lucky Luciano. A “thing” to defeat, with investigations by investigators but also with knowledge. Because the strategy of camouflage (devised by the mafia boss Bernardo Provenzano) worked all the more in the US, with small “accidents” along the way, such as the assassination two years ago of the boss of one of the most important

American mafia families, the Italian-American Francesco Paolo Augusto Calì, for all Frank.

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he “Atlantic pact” between mafias, with the resumption at “full speed” of relations between the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the US, is of increasing concern. All the more so with the rain of billions (on the one hand the Biden Plan, on the other the Recovery Fund) sent to the economies of the United States and Europe. Between the shores of the ocean the sea is full of fish, the two mafias have their nets ready, we need to be vigilant starting from knowledge.

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ON THE COVER

Susanna Casubolo interviewed Italian actor Gianni Rosato

“We met him in Rome to learn about his current and future professional projects. Here we are also a little excited to do this interview because Gianni was very helpful and generous and has left a beautiful imprint of himself by opening the doors of his inner world, and letting us peek at

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ON THE COVER

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ON THE COVER

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GIANNI ROSATO

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ON THE COVER

ianni Rosato, born in Calabria and raised in Piedmont, is an eclectic and incredibly handsome actor, with a “Bad Face” and an explosive talent.

He has lived in Rome for 20 years, he came there to cultivate his passion for acting. He studied acting at the “TeatroP” in Lamezia Terme, directed by Pietro Bonaccorso, and then continued his studies at the Enzo Garinei Accademia di Recitazione, by attending also the preparatory seminar at the Scuola Nazionale di Cinema di Cinecittà , directed by Giancarlo Giannini, to then study at Rossella Izzo’s School of Cinema and Theater Actor’s Planet.

Humble and very kind, he pursued his dream with passion and effort by being a waiter to pay his study and become an actor. In 2007 he was noticed by the director Giulio Base who wrote him in the cast of miniseries “L’inchiesta” (The Investigation) from there began his various participations in cinemas, commercials, theater and fiction including “Modalità arbitraria” (Arbitrary modality), “Figli di Maam” (Sons of Maam), “La culla dell’oblio” ( The cradle of oblivion), “Qualunque cosa succeda” (Anything happen), “Il giudice meschino” ( The petty judge), “Che Dio ci aiuti” ( May God help us), “Un medico in famiglia” (A doctor in the family), “ Don Matteo “, “Distretto di polizia” (District of police).

2020 was a year full of satisfactions for him: he starred in the film “La fuggitiva” (The Fugitive) directed by Carlo Carlei, in the sixth edition of the series “Che Dio ci aiuti” (May God help us), in the film “Morrison” by Federico Zampaglione and in spot of “Carapelli”.

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ON THE COVER

ow were you when you were little? What do you defend and still carry inside of that child?

- When I was little I liked to play with my brothers and my cousins.

I have a strong memory in my mind, it dates back to when I went to school and my teacher was always mad at me because she always said that I chatted with a child, a classmate and when I did not want to be in class I ran out of the classroom. But I was also a “wise man” and I wanted to class always answer all questions. I was a very shy and quiet child, I enjoyed playing with older kids because everyone told me I was a very kid friendly. If today I were to tell you what I defend and still carry within that age ... well I am proud to tell you that sometimes, thanks to that little boy, I can see things differently and still today that child is always next to me.

How important are origins and family to you? Are you an only child or do you have a large family?

- I am the son of a traditional family, we are two brothers, a sister and another father’s brother.

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H It is true that we are all born with a genetic heritage to which we owe a large part of our own characteristics, but it is also true that the environment has a strong weight in determining our identity.

Our heritage are fundamental components of our identity, even those to which we give little value, because maybe we think they only concern a distant grandfather, or those who don’t we consider becouse , for a thousand reasons, they are difficult to accept.

I strongly believe it is very important for each of us, to know our origins and the history of our family,they are like the roots of a tree, they are fundamental.

They support us and nourish our identity. This is why it is important to know and pass them on, together with the pride of owning them.

As always, in fact, lack of knowledge makes everything more difficult, giving rise to gaps that in lack of objective elements are filled with imagination, with the risk of projecting fantasies, anxieties and fears. I would like to add that we are not born only from the union of two individuals, but also from the union of families, of worlds, which can also

be very different between them, but somehow they belong to us.

Also for me, family is important.

My parents are everything. My starting point, my turning point, my refuge. It is the place from which I leave and then come back!

Among the people with whom you have worked from whom you have taken away a teaching that you jealously guard in your professional and human baggage?

- I met Lino Banfi some time ago at the LUISS university. A very positive experience.

I remember that Lino told us about his hard and complicated childhood and it was just as I saw him get excited that I expressed a desire, inside of me, that is to be able to work with him and now I can say I was really lucky! On the set, he was very generous, he has a personality and a very strong charisma, both on stage and with the cameras off. At the end of the shoot, when he said goodbye, he shook my hands and said to me: “It really was really nice to meet you and work with you, you will see how many

ON THE COVER

beautiful things will come in the future “. From the cast, I have had affection, warmth and esteem, but above all I received their smile that will remain with me forever!

I remember that one day, on the set, it was particularly cold. My teeth chattered for how I felt cold.

Suddenly Lino came over and without thinking twice took off the blanket from behind and laid on me, he said to me: “Take it, cover yourself! In my life, I’ve taken too much cold and I know what that means ”. He gave me goosebumps for his gesture in towards me. I will not forget it!

Do the characters you play have characteristics that you find within yourself? Which one looks like you the most?

I honestly think that no character played so far is particularly like me, and it is a game that gives me so much adrenaline. Acting it is the art of being able to live more reality; is to think, interact, identify with the most different characters each time in a different family. Do not think that to recite is only necessary to learn by heart

and that’s it; an actor in fact makes a tremendous and wonderful inner work at the same time. You get to really know yourself and to channel certain emotions. I love acting and it doesn’t matter if in the theater, in the cinema or on TV. There what is important is to do it in the best possible way! With a predisposition you are born there,

then, growing up, you learn to get to know it and, if you are determined, you cultivate it until the day this passion finally takes form.

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ON THE COVER

ow do you prepare for a character who is distant or opposite to your way of being? Do you find it more difficult?

- I humbly take the liberty of quoting the great James Dean who affirmed: «Understanding the complete meaning of life is up to the actor; interpret it as his problem and express it as his mission.

Being an actor is the loneliest thing in the world. You are completely alone with your concentration and with your imagination, and that’s all you have. Being a good actor is not easy. Being a man is even more difficult. I want to be both before I die “...” What great idea to be an actor, you take the story and the characters you conquer. You make yourself loved, you can let yourself be kissed and leave, you can be born and die a thousand times, laugh and cry and then come home.

I consider that the most important thing, to do the actor’s job well, is the attitude towards the director. With him I think there must be a kind of “transference” that is, the actor must understand what the director ish expectation and at this point it will be enough for him to follow that first intuition, a kind of impulse. The secret is in letting go. A phrase from the great Lee Strasberg always comes to mind: “The actor creates with his flesh and his blood all those things that the other arts, in some way, try to describe… ”but to those who ask me what exactly it means to be an actor, I feel to answer that I am myself only when I am someone else.

During the preparation of the film there is an initial phase in which you know the character, then the character becomes a part of you, it is not me who becomes the character, it is he who becomes a part of me. It must also be said that with the actors it is also a matter of luck. There is no telling how they will react to the character entrusted to them. Sometimes there is no spark with the great actor and it happens instead of a minor one that takes in flight. To conclude, I would like to say that the actor is a liar who is asked the utmost sincerity “.

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ON THE COVER

“The actor creates with his flesh and his blood all those things that the other arts, in some way, try to describe…”

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ON THE COVER

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ould you change anything in the world of television and cinema in which you trained?

- No, absolutely I would not change anything, I consider myself lucky in this too, I started taking my first steps, contenting myself with the smallest things, in bites and bites, slowly I’m reaching my goals, even if the road is still uphill, too uphill, but I have good shoes on my feet. I can’t stand and don’t like shortcuts at all. I think that if an actor wants to build a long-lasting career, he has to build it as a child, bricks day after day; a career that comes suddenly, that success that upsets you from moment to moment, if it doesn’t come from an excellent mess tin, it’s just a flash in the pan, unfortunately and it burns you in the bud.

Can you tell us a personal defeat and victory about your story?

- Since I was a child, as I said before, I have always been calm, lively, at times shy, at others perhaps too outgoing. After several years of bullying and insults though, I always started quit more in myself and to be afraid even to leave the house, but above all to go to school. “If I see you around I beat you “my bully wrote me, in notes that he rolled up and then threw me during the lesson, threats that had no motivation other than to exclude me from social life at school and outside that hostile environment. An unsustainable situation. I felt more 54

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and more sad, melancholy towards life and towards everyone, I began to lose interest in everything that interested me. There was a time when I hid all the snacks for school in the backpack and every week I went to throw them in the bin under my house. I had a stomach completely closed. Just going to school and taking a lesson was starting to become complicated, also thanks to a little empathic teacher. Take a lesson without going panic was now unthinkable for me. To avoid this, I often asked to leave the classroom to go to the bathroom.

Unfortunately one of my teachers instead of understanding me and helping me, I had just 14 years old, she immediately labeled me as the whiny of the class. She got very strict with me, preventing me from leaving the classroom, despite my now continuous moods.

Just 15 years old I felt I had hit rock bottom, I really couldn’t take it anymore ... I could go on, tell about it many more, but I don’t want to. I want to take advantage of it instead, to send a message: “do not judge never a boy for what appears outside, inside has a world to discover, do not have prejudices and if you really have to do it and you can’t help it, try to think before to speak, think carefully about what you are going to say. To those who unfortunately suffer instead, not to break up never say it is worthless or even be deemed useless. Always remember that, whoever he judges you, he only does it because you have something they will never have.

Live every day at the

maximum and do not think about the future. In short, be happy to feel happy..

The year 2020 has been very active for you, you have worked on several projects. How was it working with Carlo Carlei and Federico Zampaglione?

- First of all, I must say that having had the opportunity to work with a great director like Carlo Carlei was a great satisfaction. I fell professionally in love with Carlo Carlei when I was a little boy, when the film on the story of Padre Pio was broadcast on TV and then the one about Enzo Ferrari, both interpreted by a masterful Sergio Castellitto. I said to myself: “one day I want to work with him ”and I must say that life has been very generous repaying my sacrifices and dedication that I put into what we could all call work, but that is not a simple work, it is the good fortune to be able to make a profession out of one’s passion.

Today as it is today truly a luxury.

In “La fuggitiva” I played Goran, a villain who is part of a clan of Slavs who together, decide to rob a very wealthy family, but in the end, as often happens in life, things do not go as expected… The Rai Uno audience responded very well to thismaster piece of Maestro Carlei. It is a truly compelling story and has kept everyone in suspense throughout the broadcast.

This is a prime time for Rai Uno. Renato Lay is another beautiful satisfaction for me.

“Always remember that, whoever judges you, he only does it because you have something they will never have. Live every day at the maximum and do not think about the future. In short, be happy to feel happy ”.

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ON THE COVER

H e is a man who will try to be an actor, but I won’t tell you if he will succeed ... he is a character in the film “Morrison” by Federico Zampaglione (Tiromancino).

Also in this case I must say that I was really impressed by Federico Zampaglione’s modus operandi.

Today there are many artists belonging to different categories, who try their hand in the world of cinema, we often hear about singers who want to be actors, or directors not always with great results. Federico Zampaglione was a wonderful discovery. The ability to understand what an actor can give and convey is emotions as a veteran director. He succeeds by putting you immediately at ease. And then it is a film for the cinema where the public loved the story… but let me say that it was a great success, especially for the protagonist (Lorenzo Zurzolo, very good actor) who brought home the “Nastro d’argento” award..

In your current projects there is the medium-length film Yuria directed by Mattia Riccio. It was shot in Curinga.

In the presentation press conference: why not? The return to the origins. How did the collaboration with Mattia Riccio start?

- The choice on Curinga to shoot this project stems from a healthy, sincere pride, a reliving of known and non-anonymous environments.

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ON THE COVER

The director himself, Mattia Riccio, in fact anticipated in his speech that this first project will be the prologue to a TV series that will be made and produced in the coming years. The director is absolutely in agreement with me, in fact for him too, visiting Curinga was a pleasant discovery, made up of unique places to be valued. The collaboration with Mattia was born during the filming of “The Cradle of Oblivion” of which I am the protagonist together with the talented Marica Cotognini and Valerio Fadda.

This short film was selected in competition for the “David di Donatello” awards and has participated in 43 festivals.

What will Yuria’s future be?

There is talk of an upcoming TV series inspired by this project.

Can you tell us something more?

- Yuria is now ready for release, in fact from the end of October it will be possible to see it on various channels: Amazon Prime Video, Rai Play and Chili TV. I must say that the shooting period was very intense, we worked without ever

looking at the clock and without even considering what day it was.

A very intense, exciting period where we all gave the best of ourselves. Unfortunately, there have been several attempts by third parties to incorrectly impose other non-professional actors, locations or even changes with the addition of jokes. They were vain attempts, I do not like the recommendations nor the forced impositions that lead absolutely nowhere. I like to work only for meritocracy. As for the series, however, it is in the script phase, but unfortunately I can not reveal anything.

connection coming from all the citizens of their own nation, and in a moment they absorb the conscience and the common knowledge in order to establish the critical priorities and have the necessary information to address them effectively. After forcibly undergoing these experiences they should all be sufficiently motivated to use their arts for the common good. Only in this way, in my opinion, we would emerge from these situations that seem insurmountable.

And finally, if a genius could grant your wish, which one would you express?

- Honestly, I immediately think about the historical period we are experiencing. I would like those who seek to divide us and capitalize on our fears and frustrations to be forced to live there suffering of their victims. I think 24 hours would be enough to leave a mark on even the most stubborn ones. I would like them to receive a condensed telepathic WINTER - 2021- 2022

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A tastings of Italian language and culture :

by Mariagrazia Pia

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PARLI ITALIANO?

“SPEAK AS YOU EAT!”

by Mariagrazia Pia

Is

an Italian proverb to make it clear that our language must be sincere, genuine, like a food whose recipe and ingredients we know.

of Dante's journey, when he said he was lost in the dark forest and did not understand how it was possible, "pien di sonno/full of sleep" when he entered!

So I will propose a "tasting" of Italian words, of idioms, trying to warn against common mistakes for foreigners, hoping to arouse nostalgia in those who do not write or read in Italian, do not speak and understand it, but he knows that, in his family origins or in those of his friends and acquaintances, this conviction circulates: “I'm Italian”.

Here too we often do not realize how we ended up in the worst of our real nightmares, both individually and collectively: reason "dormire/sleeps"!

On 14 September 1321, the father of the Italian language, the great poet, Dante Alighieri, died in Ravenna. In celebrating the seven hundred years of his death worldwide, we ask him for a living word on the Italian of the twenty-first century, not the language of the classics, of the fourteenthcentury poets. Here, by magic, he gives us two words to reflect on: "paura /fear", "noia/boredom".

After seven hundred years they are still the words of our daily life: only the term "paura" has remained as it is not only in our vocabulary, but in our hearts, needless to say what it is, on a global level, in these two years.

Instead "noia" is almost becoming a luxury, but not in the original meaning, in which we read it in Hell: it indicated "angoscia/anguish", "tormento/ torment", "dannazione/damnation".

By now getting bored is a sign of decadence, a state of mind for the rich, for the privileged, to be ashamed of.

Unfortunately, we are back to boredom as torment, to anxiety, to the anguish 60

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Being able to say I'm Italian is also recognizing that this poet, seven hundred years after his death, speaks to us at a universal, world level, also globalized, reinterpreted and celebrated in the various continents, but certainly Dante Alighieri and The Divine Comedy for an Italian of origin, (even if now of the third, fourth or fifth generation in the USA and America) is something other than all those who are not Italians.

There is an emotion in pronouncing his name and the title of his Divine Comedy, which makes your eyes shine, like drinking Chianti, even if you live in Colorado, as the writer of Italian origin, J . Fante in "The Confraternity of Grapes": this is how immigrants continued to feel Italian, tasting the wine they produced so far from Tuscany, with that Catholicism that seemed to be unaffected by other religious confessions, with that sense of family that is a bond that can strangle, but which is also an allItalian way to feel that one belongs to truly transgenerational places, traditions, memories, which the recent Philosophy deals with.

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PARLI ITALIANO?

"I'm Italian" is truly an awareness that involves the five senses, not just culture, it does not stop at the knowledge of the language and literature, art and history of a nation so recent that it has only existed since 1861 and completes only since 1919!

For this there will be literary and geographical, gastronomic, artistic and historical stages, but also anecdotes and, who knows, jokes, jokes that only an Italian can understand and that I will teach to understand who is not.

Because being Italian means knowing that food is not just a matter of habit, but a tradition, a nostalgia! So even the way of joking is particular, we know how to tell private facts as if we were looking from the window of our house, towards that street that is almost never a metropolis, even the metropolis we make it into a country!

Love is something serious, tragic, magical, difficult and the family does not always accept it or is part of it! Just as politics and economics are not only topics for experts, but everyone is talking about them and wants to have their say! And every year we invent a name for a party without verifying that the people and strong ideas are always the same, but we like names, secessions, parliamentary groups, so we also need many synonyms to understand, to to deceive, to dream and also to betray.

Here this column with words will also bring ways of being and seeing, not only from Italy, but of seeing Italy and the only certain thing, even in the seismicity of our peninsula, is precisely geography, the orography and hydrography, for the rest we have a variety of plant species and ecosystems that reflect our variety of expression, still linked to the multiplicity of dialects, which young people do not speak, but which hear and are always Italian, despite the spread English and Anglisms: we understand that they are part of our blood

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even if we do not understand them and speak more.

Even the "digital natives" know it and feel it!

This is why I imagine a banquet, not a paltonic, philosophical symposium, but a nice table of traditional families, you don't get up, children, until you reach coffee !

At each course, at each issue, I can well wish: Bon appetit!

First tasting: let's introduce ourselves!

(Lesson 1) Warning: in Italy it is correct and polite, a sign of culture, to address adults, strangers, giving the "lei/you", not the "tu/ you" or voi/you.This is how children turn to their teachers, and so should all people, even peers, who do not have relations of familiarity or friendship. When there are age differences, the younger person always addresses the older person with the "Lei" unless invited to express themselves with greater familiarity.

I assume that a reader of I'm Italian asks me questions for the Italian course.

Reader : Good morning Mrs. Pia, I would like to ask what the scan progress.

M. Pia : Welcome. The column will be present at every issue of the quarterly I'm Italian magazine.

Reader : Could you tell me what the objectives of the course are?

M. Pia : Certainly. The readers of I'm Italian approach not only the Italian language, but the way of thinking, of behaving verbally, in daily conversation, in different situations, in the understanding of some simple written indications.

PARLI ITALIANO?

There will also be curiosities, hints of history and literature, Italian art, quotes, translated into English, but to be memorized also in Italian. For example " Lasciate ogni speranza voi che entrate / Leave all hope you who enter": it is a verse from Dante 's Inferno , but our high school students write it on the doors of the classrooms, to make the teachers understand that they are entering Hell!

Learning Italian verses and proverbs by heart is very useful, it makes you feel Italian, like: “Non dire gatto se non l’hai nel sacco / Don't say cat if you don't have it in the bag! "Is used to respond in kind when someone, for example in a presumptuous way, believes that he has achieved the goal!

difficulties…. What will you do for these people?

M. Pia: In Italy I have been an Italian teacher for 23 years! And I don't just teach native speakers, but students from all over the world who live with their families in Italy and have not often chosen to live there. So I'm also prepared for hostilities, for the dish that returns to the chef in the kitchen because it was rejected. I hope you will report what is wrong, it will also be a way to use Italian.

I will teach you the phrases of rejection, of protest, such as polite compliments and thanking ...

Excuse me, thank you, please, please, could you kindly re-explain, maybe I didn't understand, it wasn't very clear, it's really difficult, we don't care, let's give up ...

Or we still use to justify even a betrayal with the verse used by Francesca da Rimini in Canto V of the Inferno: “Amor ch'a nullo amato amar perdona” ! It means that if a person is much loved, he can only give in to temptation!

In short, you will get used to using Italian tones also to express a feeling, a request for help, for explanation, for advice!

Reader : Thank you, then we look forward to your next lesson. Leave us a sentence to remember by heart?

In short, Italians are good at quoting, at justifying themselves with culture, with phrases that no longer even remember who they are, but they are useful!

M. Pia Sure. I would propose "Mi'illumino d'immenso " by the poet G. Ungaretti! For a landscape, a love, a moment of happiness, a book read, a film, the smile of your child ...

Reader: Will it also entertain us, will it be able to intrigue us?

M. Pia: Of course yes, it is a promise! It will be a little… as you say all you can eat: at a fixed price of the magazine everyone will taste what they can and find in the variety of which they can satiate, until the next issue.

See you at the next lesson or tasting of Italian style!

Reader : Among us there may be readers with allergies, literary or historical intolerances, linguistic

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PEOPLE

GIUSEPPE Business man

I t’s almost 90 years

that Harry’s Bar has opened in Venice, and since then it has become a legend.

Actually its own story is legendary: Giuseppe Cipriani, a bartender at Europa Hotel in Venice in the late 1920s, had a good client, a rich young American whose name was Harry Pickering. Harry was devoted to Giuseppe’s bar, his exquisite manners but most of all to drinking. That’s why the Pickerings decided to cut Harry’s finances: to help his new friend Giuseppe lent Harry 10,000 lire (more or less 7,800 dollars today) and wished him good luck. A couple of years later, Harry showed up at Europa Hotel bar, ordered a drink and handed Giuseppe a 50,000 note. He didn’t just want to pay off his debt, he wanted Giuseppe to open his own bar but pose one condition: it should have been named after him.

An that’s how, on May 13th 1931, Harry’s Bar opened in Calle Vallaresso, a few steps behind Piazza San Marco. Since its very first day, the bar has been the favourite spot for international customers – Americans above others. Its atmosphere hasn’t changed through the decades, and being the birthplace of Bellini cocktail (white peach juice mixed with prosecco, dedicated to the 1500s Venetian painter Giovanni Bellini) and beef “carpaccio” (raw thinly sliced meet, named after another Venetian painter – Vittore Carpaccio – famous for his deep red) has helped building the legend.

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JOHN Actor

F

ascinated by Italian literature since the 1990s, in 1997 John played Primo Levi in Francesco Rosi’s movie “The Truce”.

Then he ended up directing and interpreting “Questi fantasmi” (“These Ghosts”),

by Eduardo De Filippo, at Teatro Mercadante in Naples in 2006. And two years later he was again on an Italian set, starring in Spike Lee’s “Miracle at St. Anna”. In 2018 John also debuted as opera director, choosing Verdi’s “Rigoletto”. “Cultural heritage implies a shared bond, it’s our history and our identity”.

To show his total devotion to his ancestry, in 2011 he became an Italian citizen and now he’s both honorary citizen of Aragona, province of Agrigento, and Giovinazzo, province of Bari, where his parents’ families come from.

Yet, it hasn’t been easy for him keeping his Italian side alive. Although he has been raised listening to the opera (his mother was a singer, his father knew all “Il Trovatore” by heart) Italian wasn’t spoken at home. John uses to tell a sad story about his mother’s childhood: she lost her mom at an early age, and her dad took her to an orphanage because he had to work. There, the nuns forbade her to speak any Italian, punishing her when she used it. Little Katherine was so scared that, even when she got home, she spoke only English and got mad at her dad if he dared use Italian or – worse – dialect. “I really wish I would have taken the time to learn Italian growing up. I have this strong tie with Italy: any time I go back, I feel like a child of the South”.

PEOPLE

Elena Frigenti and Massimo Basile, both Italian journalists with thirty years of experience.

We come from Tuscany (Firenze and Livorno) but have lived in Rome for twenty years before moving to NYC in September 2018. From the States, we write as correspondents for daily newspapers, magazines and press agencies.

If you’re wondering why we chose to brand us as “Franky in New York”, here’s the answer.

First of all, the name is a tribute to Frank Sinatra, a great Italian American and a fulgid example of persistence. Besides, Franky is also one the most common names among Italian Americans, while New York is actually the city where any dream can come true. As Frank Sinatra sang, “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere”…

Want to keep in touch with Franky? Tell us your story, your memories, your projects?

Email to franky@frankyinnewyork.com! or scan the code

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SCAN THE CODE TO LEARN MORE OR CLICK

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SCAN THE CODE TO LEARN MORE OR CLICK

The wonderful cuisine

BY LAURA RANGONI

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CHEFS

The wonderful cuisine

BY LAURA RANGONI

Spaghetti alla carbonara

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here is currently a debate in Italy on the origin of carbonara, which seems to involve the Americans. This recipe, despite having entered the Roman cuisine by right, has its origins in pasta “Cacio e ova” (cheese and eggs) from Abruzzo.

According to some, the American military landed in Italy in the Second World War, they added bacon to Abruzzo pasta, actually inventing it bacon and egg.

According to others, it owes its name to the Carbonari, who in the nineteenth century went to mass to work in the charcoal pits of Lazio. Having available the “guanciale” used in many preparations, and the eggs, almost always easily available in the area, “invented” this recipe to be cooked even in the workplace.

Ingredients for 4 people 400 g of spaghetti 4 egg yolks 200 g of bacon 100 g of grated aged pecorino 5-6 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil salt and black pepper Bring a saucepan with plenty of salted water to a boil and cook spaghetti or, at most, the bucatini.

In the meantime, cut the bacon into cubes and brown it in the oil, until it is toasted.

In a bowl, beat the egg yolks with the pecorino cheese, salt and a generous amount of minced bacon with a fork of black pepper.

It is important to let the bacon cool down a little because, when we add it to the eggs, they are not cooked. Once warm, add the sauce to the egg and cheese mixture.

Drain the pasta al dente and pour the egg over the pasta.

The heat of the pasta itself will make the egg thicken, without overcooking it.

Mix thoroughly, possibly adding a tablespoon of the cooking water pasta if the sauce is not creamy enough, then sprinkle with a little more pecorino grated and black pepper to taste.

Wine pairing: for my taste a soft white, but sapid and mineral, capable of contrast the richness of the egg, then a Verdicchio Superiore (Marche) or a Chardonnay Trentino (Trentino Alto Adige).

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THE SIRONI METHOD

THE TIME MACHINE HAS NO ENGINE!

by Roberto Sironi

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I pedal it, so sooner or later I’ll get somewhere! hen I started cycling I discovered a world I had never seen before, a world in motion! I know it might be a trivial phrase, but it isn’t! The bicycle is an instrument of movement, a silent, effective, in a certain sense mysterious instrument, it could even be science fiction given its total and very simple technical complexity! The bicycle is simple and I, who am a follower of the movement, have interpreted this “slow and silent ride” as an act of happiness, an allegory of pastime but above all and without a doubt, this motor exercise is essentially a movement of the soul!

Soul, psyche and spirit united in a single device that is almost diabolical and at the same time angelic, heavenly like everything that lives in the air, in a lightness and suspension that is difficult to describe, to live!

On this medium, I would say “mechanically ancestral” like an Icarus of modern times, I began to fly on other ideas, other concepts, other views and other convictions.

So, slowly this enchanting vehicle has transported me on the roads of the world!

I have done almost twenty thousand kilometers on the saddle of my bicycle, day after day, season after season, year after year along the winding paths of inspiration and intuition, reflection and meditation, chasing perceptions and sensations that in a certain sense have changed my way of thinking and acting ... In this hypnotic and pedaling madness, as an artist, painter and musician I let all the imagination I could free to restore a visionary and certain existential presence to reality!

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THE SIRONI METHOD

The time machine has no engine!

C and sobriety!

ycle can become magic, spell and spell, charm and suggestion if only one is able to fully understand it in its disarming naturalness

The sense of measure of those two wheels, which despite being close to each other, is pure and extraordinary witchcraft ... The roundabouts of the imagination know the circles, the circumferences, the orbits, the perimeters of the roundnesses and everything that rotates millimetrically, as if by magic, it becomes an unrestrained liberation, an uncontrollable destiny from which to start and then return and leave again and return for eternity!

All this led me to create an eco / cycle / artistic project that I called “Art on two wheels”, an idea built as a triad made up of painting, music and literature!

In short, the bicycle as a meeting point between past and future, passing from a present in eternal movement! The purpose of this project is to be able to raise awareness and to aggregate an audience around the idea of the bicycle not only as an ecological solution and intelligent transport but also as a means of “cultural and artistic locomotion” to generate another way of creating “ movement ”, to promote 76

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culture through humanistic mobility and new socializing energies.

A creative and artistic journey dedicated to the most ecological means existing on planet Earth and on a human scale! A journey into the incomprehensible clarity and logic of “metronomicity!” Exactly, the “metronomicity!” ...

How I understand this “metronomicity”, a word that I invented for expressive necessity, although it does not exist, it perfectly conveys the idea of rhythm, succession, cadence, therefore of the trend, it is ultimately what I think is harmony in things, in life, in thoughts: a particular measurement of time, of my time and I do not mean the time established and determined by a clock, but by a strange swing that rhythmically marks the steps of my life which, if desired, could be like the obligatory pedals of a bicycle that chasing each other are never wrong, never go out of time, never out of tune!

All and only harmony! The melody is in the wheels, that is, in the events that have composed and will still compose my life!

But let’s stay with the bicycle, indeed on the bicycle!

On that saddle I trained my brain to do more things, to look at the landscape, to think, to be inspired and to love that silence just touched by the whirring

of the wheels! It is a beautiful way to understand the road, the asphalt on which you are traveling and then there is the air ... The air that ruffles your hair and that gives you the feeling that infinity is a portion of the fantasy that only your eyes can imagine.

I defined the bicycle as a “Time Machine without the engine” and it seems to me, a little presumptuously, an excellent definition, interesting, nice, I even wrote a book about it which I gave as title “The Time Machine it has no engine “! ...

As an artist I felt the need to take care of the bicycle, this “purebred mare”, which trots on two wheels and which once again imposes itself on the attention of the world and in this current situation as a possible existential solution!

And as I said before, as far as I am concerned it could and should become the prologue of a probable and surprising cultural evolution, an unexpected fusion of eco / socio / futuristic and sustainable technologies that will impose themselves and modify our basic thinking regarding livability of the our planet!

THE SIRONI METHOD

In short, since I’m talking about “cyclosophy”, I would say that on the path of thought there must be a “pedaling” anthology where the wheels are the pages of a book that flow freely in every direction, in an unusual florilege that brings together words, observations and experiences of a journey made up of kilometers and kilometers of life through an extraordinary universality, in fact, a “time machine without an engine”, a miracle of the human being’s intelligence, an invention capable of reversing the fate of obvious, a work of art created by a simple intuition coming from who knows where !?

After all the flying and bizarre machines, war machines, walking machines, on rails etc ... here is the bicycle that messes up the game et voilà: here it is in all its splendor the time machine without an engine, without a rumble, a bang, a rattle ...

Here it is in its magnificence, almost human, as if it were breathing, as if it had its own thought, therefore probably also a soul!

The bicycle was for me a source of great pictorial, literary and even musical inspiration! I really like the idea that an object has attracted my attention up to this point ... Of course, looking at it carefully, you understand the magic of that movement in constant balance with the inscrutable!

If one thinks about it, he could also

imagine that the bicycle has wings hidden somewhere and that his Icarus, as I was, and as I still am, believed in an impossible dream to the point of making it possible with just one metronomic gesture: pedal!

Even Leonardo had the intuition to imagine this hypnotic “machine” . .. “ In short, the bicycle is an attraction for everyone and for all ages! Look at it well, observe it, spy on it and you will realize that before your eyes it is not just a prodigy on two wheels, a wonder in balance, a silent and phantasmagoric portent, but an amazing and amazing lady or young lady who for once, finally, pay no attention to her skirt and the wind that lifts it, no, this time, finally, that lady or young lady smiles and pedaling and then disappears forever from your life, it will leave you with a memory as intimate as it is forbidden that will follow you for a lifetime !

immense bliss!

I did a lot of swing in my life as a musician, but I did the same following that “metronomicity” that amazes me every time for its perfect harmony while on the saddle I think about how nice it would be to fly!

Did I want to pedal? And then sooner or later I’ll get somewhere! Where is it? It does not matter! The important thing is to go everywhere and in the meantime also be there in that trend, really be there while the world and things turn as the wheels of this luxurious, fascinating and inimitable time machine turn without the engine: the bicycle!

After all, the bicycle is female!

Pedaling you go everywhere surrounded by a sense of fatigue that slowly, gesture after gesture, disperses every slightest hint of weakness, of exhaustion to reinvent itself in a sort of existential vigor, thanks to an unlimited feeling of happiness mixed with a perception of enjoyment, for example. an omen of satisfaction and an impression of WINTER - 2021- 2022

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WINTER - 2021 - 2022

WINTER - 2021- 2022

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