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BROKEN: Do Not Use by Sheree La Puma, Main Street Rag Publishing Company, 2021, 56 pp., $13.00
Reviewed by Amy Small-McKinney
Sheree La Puma's first poem, "Ode To Mother," contains a note at the end of the first page:
*note: mother is the beginning / & the end is mother
And indeed, her book of poems, Broken: Do Not Use, contains four sections—the first, It begins with Mother, and the last, Who am I if not—mother, and embedded in-between, Second Coming—Daughter and Father—Lost.
In the first heartbreaking poem, the lines between who and what is a mother become blurred, as they increasingly do throughout the book. Mother is "Eve and Mary" and "motherfucker." The use of slashes, ampersands, and notes guide us toward understanding the impossibility of certainty and how losses disrupt clear definitions:
mother is birth / & after birth / the spoils & the blame / if a mother's
job is to love her children / then I have failed / my baby born /
dead / DEAD / mother is what you do / before your heart leaves the
building /
and later in the same poem, the forewarning of knife cuts and suicide and addiction and "the stranger / lurking in our DNA
mother is a book / not a story / a sonnet / not a haiku /
Eve & Mary / motherfucker / not some fairytale / the prick
of a needle / the point of a pen / a drug / a color, lurking /
A sense of disruption and disconnection and impossible loss continues in the poem, "Self-Portrait as A Mourning Dove," written to a miscarried daughter. The poem's negative space gives us wordlessness and emptiness, and leaves us waiting for any kind of closure:
I try to hold on to the baby / passing / through me, soft
as a blurred / landscape. Listen for a coo
after a long season of silence
has me / pleading for rescue.
and then the juxtaposition of sound, of nature and paper, of shredded and song and bird and bandage:
Ugly bird with your drawn-out song of lament,
what do you keep in the years since she left,
a blank page, shredded, seeds and grit?
A bandage of shrubs?
Throughout this book, the shock of La Puma's lush language rubbing against hard imagery lands us in the omphalos of poignant beauty and defeat. From her poem, "Daughter: the sin that lives on my tongue," these lines:
Here is how you navigate pain. Dive
deep into emptiness, there is silence
there like a Great Blue Hole. Mother
is a negotiation of waves. An ocean
lives on my tongue, water morphing into sin.
There can be no expectation that this book will be neatly wrapped up when the author tells us, in "The Transitory Nature of Happiness,"
I demonstrate the kind
of unreliability of a woman looking for
an ending to fall into.
The only closure possible is "I am Mother" with all the contradictions that contains.
But how does the author not become her mother, who is in her "2nd week in / rehab. It's like plugging a dam / with a tissue." How does she protect her own children "who are poisoned" and still "show no symptoms?" By building "an ark built of silver-fir/coffee & oranges on the deck, calm / seas/ midnight blues" though eventually her children will "stage mutiny."
Yes, there is unremitting loss in this book—loss of addicted mother, grandmother who commits suicide, miscarried daughter, ex-husband who dies, children who struggle with loss, and the speaker who is searching for some kind of definition of self and mother, something holy and god-like in the writing on a "scared wrist" or "in search of a new church. // My Body. Your Body, until her poems become a lament, a litany of mother mother mother, until this reader loses all sense of what that word means or how to redefine it. La Puma cuts into this reader's psyche until finally, in "I Let Go," she tells us:
Until then, a body stitches itself tighter. Grief, is a
balm/a holy river/blue transplanted & worn like skin.
Until in "There Are Many Ways to Say I Miss You," whether talking to the natural world, the sea, the feathers, or God, she tells us:
Give me a reason to walk among the living. I know how the shoreline
feels to give back what's been given, that generous voice
that brings more than sound.
Never exactly closure. Never the sea or sky reaching down to hold her, but yes, La Puma offers us a "generous" honest loving hurt voice that brings to us more than sound. It carries in its mouth the body of slow and hard healing. This is a breathtaking and beautiful book inviting us into the body and mind of a woman finding her way.
Shade of Blue Trees by Kelly Cressio-Moeller, Two Sylvias Press, 2021, pp. 99, $17.00
Reviewed by Elline Lipkin
It's rare that I want to mark every poem, underline so many phrases and words in a book, but as I read Kelly Cressio-Moeller's debut poetry book, Shade of Blue Trees, so rich in lyricism, it needed to be ingested slowly, with a pen to steady me. And, like a feast, digested over days ahead.
Many of the poems in Shade swirl around medical issues or death and the ghosts that accompany these subjects—fear, worry, and projection into both what is ahead and what is past. Part of Cressio-Moeller's gift is the way she halos light around dark subjects so there is a sheen set over despair—a trick of light that makes grief take on a golden glint.
The natural world is deeply present from the opening lines: "For a long time I wanted / to drink a cup of winter, / to become tipsy on early / dark & longer starshine." The book tracks light, the season's mood and its effects, and always glides back to the physical world, often near the ocean, as in the couplets of "Pelagic": "Giant kelp coppers teal water, long garlands wreathe into laurel / crowns as if all Olympus is surfacing." Later, in "Letter to the Low Tide," the lines sway and pace themselves as a speaker unburdens herself with the lines, "I, too, want // to unhook myself from the shore."
Cressio-Moeller's adeptness with line lengths and form bring the reader into the page as if into a painting. Poems unfurl in wavy, staggered, or waterfall spacing down the page. Her use of monostitch is particularly adept, such as the poem "A Night of One's Own": "Dark chocolate. Pinot noir. More please. / I could drink a case of Joni." Or the poem "Ithaka," which renders the tale through evenly paced one-line missives.
In contrast to this, there are several dense prose poems in the book (all titled with "Panels…"), such as in the early "Panels from a Deepening Winter," which relays a story about a blacksmith and wife, full of the richness that seems so deeply part of this poet's gift: "He opens his box of mountains, / takes her ivory comb, wraps it in the small dreams / of winter wrens then lines his waistcoat with her / ashes." Later, there is a long sequence of linked prose poems, "Panels from a Celestial Autumn," that gorgeously reference various myths, underlaid, at the end, with a narrative about the speaker's mother.
Cressio-Moeller's poems seem like a series of deft feints into other realms. The veil is thin in these poems as she seamlessly moves between death and life, the known and what is unknown, but deeply felt, with such lyric grace and precision it is impossible to not be pulled along. The poem "Conscious Sedation" seems to embody this—literally—the body and mind traversing two states of being: "another gone before it is taken, / another taken before I am gone." This chimes with the later "Waiting for Charon in the ER" and the sense, again, that a speaker, grappling with pain or disease, is hovering between states and knows one day she will (again near water) be ferried to another side.
Those who are gone from the Earth come back to visit in this book, as Cressio-Moeller writes in the deeply poignant poem, "Visitation": "I understood those deer / were my parents, / checking in to say, Your life / is not invisible to us. / And the love we always had / for you, continues —." The powerful and brief poem "Irony" is entirely about trying to bridge that distance: "When your mother dies / the first person / you want to call / is her." Spacing and visual elements serve the elongated stretch of lines in "Diminuendo" as each word sinks lower on the page in enactment of leaning down to the speaker's parents' graves: "I / must / kneel, / place / my / ear / to / the / ground," she writes, as focus shifts to that drop.
The book does not shy away from violence—there is a searing portrait of a family in the poem "Inheritance" as a texture of woes is conveyed: "a shattered girl / who grew into a mosaic of glass shards — / all angles and hard jawline framed / by quartz hair and a cutting gaze." At various points in the text, sexual abuse and harassment are also part of the speaker's stories. These add to the sense of chiaroscuro that shadows the book—light and dark interplay so that the natural beauty the speaker writes about so well glints against what other menace the world has to offer.
Cressio-Moeller shows such high lyric range in this book. Rich metaphor is streaked through with sorrow and grief is brindled with luminescence so that a raw beauty sparks. The poems often locate in the liminal—a space near illness and death, or trying to find beauty while so aware of near threat.
In the final poem "Something to Remember," Cressio-Moeller writes of darkness, "It doesn't care about your tongue / of honey and stars; your breath / of apples and wine. It's busy / quilting corners of indifference / and will return again and again." The flat beauty in the words contrast with a chilling portrait. Yet there is both balm and the invocation of solace in the poem's final lines: "if you are patient,/ your eyes will adjust to the dark."
Elixir by Janine Purtureri Certo
Bordighera Press / New American Press, 2021, 100 pp., $18.00
Reviewed by Theodora D. Patrona
Elixir: "A sovereign remedy for illness; a strong extract or tincture; the quintessence or soul of a thing; its home kernel or secret principle" (Oxford English Dictionary). The epigraph that initiates the reader into the universe of Janine Purtureri Certo's poetry succinctly says it all. Certo's latest poetic collection covers all three previous definitions of elixir: it is a remedy for nostalgia of times and spaces lost, an extract of the poet's emotional world, the quintessence of her thoughts and principles.
A creative writing scholar and a teacher, the talented Certo has received numerous awards and distinctions for her two previous collections and overall work on literary production. Elixir, dedicated to her deceased father, besides her close family, consists of five sections: "Intimate Immensity," "House and Universe," "From Cellar to Table," "Corners and Miniature," "The Dialectic of Inside/Outside." Starting with "Drag Heavy Pot to Shed (Ars Poetica I)," an overwhelming poem, Certo reveals through it the diverse thematic threads that weave together her poetic expression: childhood shards, the grandmother presence, family hurt and trouble, the confining power of fears, lovelessness and resilience in the contemporary world. The two overarching themes, the paternal figure and ethnic culture, not accidentally the father and the fatherland, seep through numerous poems with fragile and colorful imagery underlining their omnipresence in Certo's emotional world.
Numerous gems adorn the collection: the intense pantoum "Elixir For my Father", the dark "Visiting My Mother the First Time after My Father Died (Broken Sestina)," the tender "Robins Outside the Eat'n Park." Migration and the ancestral homeland are wonderfully depicted in "My Happy Place" and "Limoncello," female grief and mourning are dominant in the heartbreaking "Visiting My Mother the First Time after My Father Died (Broken Sestina)." What lingers in the air is the poet's embrace of both the personal pain and the communal in "Home Altar in the Year of a Pandemic." Capturing the despair and loss of our times, the speaker exclaims: "What have you lost? Who / among us does not need a comfort, magic? Bring on the / cocoon, pile on the kitsch and avalanche, you merciless, / bountiful harvest, let us drown in your song." On the whole, Certo's voice, though fresh and personal, has somewhat of the classic aroma of poets like Marge Piercy and Billy Collins, revealing intimate depths to be boldly explored and expressed in future works that the reader awaits.
Fan Mail by Joey Nicoletti, Broadstone Books, 2021, pp. 102, $18.50
Reviewed by Nicole Greaves
Joey Nicoletti's new collection transports readers to 1970s America and the analog and physical world viewed through the lens of a boy coming of age when baseball players gleamed like Olympians on the turf and in the singularity of a child's mind. Aptly titled Fan Mail, this epistolary collection is a series of letters directed to different baseball players from the nostalgic speaker as he recalls pride and aspiration in these looming champions. The speaker, however, also grapples with their imperfections, not unlike those of the men in his own family.
Page after page, Nicoletti's characterizing prowess is his watchman's eye that stitches together this "horsehide vernacular" narrative laden with statistics, joyous nights, and loyalties as he deftly weaves in the Italian-American experience over generations of hard work, family schisms and loyalties, and assimilation. In "To Peter Rose," Nicoletti, in juxtaposition to Rose's record-breaking hits, recognizes his mother's accomplishment
teaching herself
and her parents
how to speak, read
and write English
as a first generation
Italian American,
Male bodies––through which this growing boy measures his own––are interchangable: "twitching muscles," "luminous legs," a "thick" or "sweaty neck." Their fragility, too, overlaps: his father's broken back and Al Rosen's "Back and leg injuries" that "hasten retirement," just as his "father couldn't work" because of his own maladies. Hope is immortalized in baseball cards that are coveted like opening advent calendar windows, where the speaker contemplates a "new baseball crush," ruminating on identity. In "To David Kingman," the speaker asks:
do I feel so connected
to someone
I never met?
Maybe it's because I was raised
with tough love:
to hide my feelings
so that no one would use them
to hurt me, like the press did to you
Nicoletti mirrors this rhetoric in other poems. In the poignant "To Razor Shines," the speaker asks:
do I have to live
a life others want
for me, just because
they've chosen it
for themselves?
When he looks at Shines's baseball card, it transports him back to his childhood home and how he committed players' names to memory, stopping the world on its axis to steady the self in the reverie. Through Shines's example ––a "career in The Show," "time as a Montreal Expo," the younger self finds his "hope" for a "different reality," one where he could be "present / in a moment // hear / some chickadees, perched / on a closeline."
At times, the speaker nearly touches the Gods. In "To Paul Blair," the speaker recounts Blair's delight to connect with his fans that are "'like family.'" The memory so sustaining that he cannot help but want
to be viewed
with the baseball you signed
in my cold, stiff hands, before
I become smoldering ash.
Here, the umbilicus line between who we were once and are in our last breath is most palpable. The way we order life becomes a relic of our time on Earth, and Nicoletti's book itself becomes such an artifact. While accessible, Nicoletti's work should be read with the same precision as crafted. As the speaker notes, crediting Frost, "pitchers are like poets"; they are adept, poised, versatile, making the arc appear seamless. Whether a baseball fan or not, a reader will find its magic and metaphor through Nicoletti's parlance and rally as the speaker finds courage to shape a distinct kind of life.
The Archaeology of a Good Ragù: Discovering Naples, My Father & Myself, by John Domini, Guernica World Editions, 2021, pp. 273 $17.95
Reviewed by George Guida
John Domini's The Archaeology of a Good Ragù: Discovering Naples, My Father & Myself joins the ranks of other recent books that distill the city's essence, including Pellegrino D'Acierno and Stanislao Pugliese's Delirious Naples and Elena Ferrante's quartet of novels beginning with My Brilliant Friend. The author's fourth book about Naples—after the novels Earthquake I. D., A Tomb on the Periphery, and The Color Inside a Melon—is both memoir and travelogue aimed at "seeing how" The City of the Sun "illuminates the self." Digging at ancestral sites, Domini unearths the truth that family stories and the lessons we seek from them are most often, for fear and shame, passed down in fragments and then only fully understood through reflection on one's own life.
The author pursues the mysteries of Naples and his father's experience in two periods of the city's social history: the 1990s to the last few years, which covers most of his middle age; and 1943 to the 1970s, which covers his father Enzo Vicedomini's wartime trials, his immigration to America, his adjustment to American life, and his son's introduction to Neapolitan society. As he describes the forces that impelled the elder man to emigrate, Domini draws one parallel after another between his own American Odyssey and return to the motherland and his father's epic journey from wartime Naples to post-War America. "To know young Enzo's war," he claims, "came to seem the catalytic agent in knowing myself."
A central theme of his father's epic is the nature of Neapolitan masculinity. His father is a perceptive and ambitious man, something of a cad, but also a devoted and doting husband. "My father modeled the right behavior," he insists, "serious but never scary, thorough but never lascivious." A man who, like his son, ends up building a fulfilling life around an American woman. His father's bildungsroman is a tale of persistence, a quality common among Neapolitans who face the ill effects of constant and multifarious poverty, bigotry, crime, and loss. When he considers the Camorra's practice of hijacking capital projects to employ their own people, Domini poses a question he could ask about the entirety of a Neapolitan existence and one that bears on his choice not to take up permanent residence in Naples: "What can you live with?
In another passage, he tells the story of the popular Neapolitan blog, "Se Steve Jobs fosse nato a Napoli" ("If Steve Jobs Had Been Born in Naples"), which imagines the criminal and bureaucratic obstacles to establishing Apple in the land of lemons. No one struggles with such obstacles more mightily than the city's recent immigrants. Fusing his migrant experience with theirs, Domini tells the story of a past lover and her subsequent Moroccan partner, to illustrate how, for a darker foreigner, only a favor for the powerful or a bed with a Neapolitan in it can open certain of society's doors. In doing so, he connects the world of "endless diaspora" resulting from economic dislocation to his need, maybe everyone's need, to "find out about the lost tribal homeland."
"Caro John," as his former lover calls him, is our and his own fragile Virgil. As cicerone, he guides us through his family's life in the city's "outer boroughs" and suburbs. At a relative's beach house near Paestum, while conducting interviews, he begins to feel himself a bit of a "freeloader," but even as such can find solace and interest (for all) at the seaside. "With the waves might reverberate the din of my youngsters, the children with their floats and the teens at their mating, but to a father half a world away from his daughter" (a condition that continually triggers Domini's remorse) "that clamor too seemed a comfort, a role reversal: the kids sang a lullaby. They sang reassurance: I wasn't a freeloader, or a bad father."
Our guide also takes us to the hilltop fraction of Soccavo, where his uncle, his father's brother, once lived in an apartment that "afforded delicious cross-ventilation. From the balcony the sea fluttered, a far-off ribbon, while the kitchen's utility porch (the fire escape) afforded a view of the inland hills. No sooner had the sun set over the hills, most mornings, than my aunt had the laundry out on a rack." This aunt's "essential gifts" included "laundry and pasta, si sicuro, but what I appreciate most was her care and handling of my roughed-up, risk-taking heart." The warm hospitality and comfort of this home contrast with the decrepitude of Soccavo's abandoned industrial sites and its general decline. Naples and environs are balm, looking glass, and caveat. The author finds himself both attracted and repelled, the way he tells us, "At the end of the 1950s Fellini turned a cold eye on the era's excesses, in La Dolce Vita." Which is why his Naples is as much a cultural production as a metropolis.
Domini knows a lot about the city, and as much about Italian, American, and Italian-American culture, and about the intersections of the three. He is a scholar of Neapolitan social history, of the city's literary and popular culture, and of its language. His allusions to literary touchstones echo his personal concerns: Ferrante plumbs Neapolitan gender relations; Norman Lewis and Curzio Malaparte recreate the city's life during wartime. Films like Hands Over the City and Excellent Cadavers reflect the city's troubles. And the local language, both familiar and strange, reveals the Neapolitan mindset. He begins the book with a consideration of the contraction "Mo'," a grunt, a moo brought up from the middle of the chest with a thrust of the bottom lip…Mo', they say, whatever the moment." The word captures what Neapolitans know and what Domini learns to accept: the contingency of life and the life of contingency.
Domini's energy and insight into Neapolitan society and into his own relationships within it play well in an era of growing social isolation punctuated by a pandemic. And he knows it. "Doesn't Naples itself stand as a dusty and redolent proof of the deep human need for community?" It is a proof requiring the kind of interrogation it receives in Archaeology, a book whose narrative persona may appeal to readers as both guides through an exotic, and, for us descendants, ancestral land, and self-help exemplar. As much Lafcadio Hearn as Augustine of Hippo, Domini is an occasional pilgrim to a spirit city that, happily for us, he can never abandon.
Things Downriver by Denise Calvetti Michaels. Cave Moon Press, 2020 98 pp. 12.95
Reviewed by Isabella Perii
Denise Calvetti Michaels's The Things Downriver begins with a quote by Fanny Howe from The Winter Sun: Notes on a Vocation, "The prose notebook is something else entirely, without repetition or revision included. It is anti-memoir." This quote prepares the reader for an account of Calvetti Michaels's life that goes beyond our expectations of what a memoir should be. The Things Downriver proves to be that and more.
As I was reading, I realized that Calvetti Michaels does what she has called in an interview I had with her "mapping memories." Instead of going from one event to the next in chronological order, The Things Downriver demonstrates how one's memories of their childhood bubble to the surface: in fragmented bits and pieces, in sudden flashes, and in recurrences. What Calvetti Michaels does in her poetic memoir is deny that a memoir must be a neat, tidy culmination of memories all sorted out to be presented as a plotted story. She delivers what one expects from a memoir—that is, a telling of one's life story—but does so in a way that is authentic to how memories take form in our minds and affect us emotionally.
Just as The Things Downriver goes against the grain of what a memoir "should be," Calvetti Michaels's telling of her childhood memories on her grandparents' farm in Salinas, California also goes against the grain of what we typically seen in many Italian American narratives. By delivering such an unusual yet authentic Italian American story, this poetic anti-memoir provides a much-needed addition to the quilt of Italian American literature. Calvetti Michaels's childhood memories confirm that while Italian Americans have many commonalities as a culture, we are not a monolithic culture.
Something that struck me while reading this story was that Calvetti Michaels's mother was not mentioned nearly as often as one would expect upon reading a story about an Italian American's upbringing. The memories in this book center around Denise, her brother Dennis, their father, and their grandparents. The mother's seeming absence is due to Calvetti Michaels choosing to write specifically the memories of her summers on her grandparents' farm, a time when her mother would go back to Italy to be with her family. In our interview, when I asked Calvetti Michaels why she chose to only include these certain memories, she said that being on the farm gave her the "freedom to explore" and thus a lot of key memories had formed. She added that during any other time of the year, she lived with her parents and brother in the "contrived and controlled" suburbs, where there were much more restrictions.
While I was surprised that the mother was not present in much of these memories, I realized that I came to this story assuming that since it's Italian American, it would have to be more about the mother. This assumption I made stems from what I've conventionally seen and understood about Italian American stories and upbringings. I've learned from reading The Things Downriver that our Italian American stories do not have to conform to what is expected of them. Just because we may expect Italian American stories to focus around the mother, that does not mean that our stories aren't "Italian enough" if they do not involve the mother as much as we might expect. Italian American experiences and stories do not always fit neatly into the same box, and that's okay. That's wonderful, even. To be clear, this does not mean Calvetti Michaels avoids writing about her mother. In fact, Calvetti Michaels is currently working on a piece titled Lamentations on the Technologies of Loss which is about her mother's hearing loss.
I was also pleasantly surprised to read and hear about Calvetti Michaels's experiences as a northern Italian. Her family hails from the Piedmont region. Calvetti Michaels and I had an interesting discussion about her northern roots. Something that struck me the most is when she explained to me that her family did not eat things like spaghetti. As silly as it may sound, upon hearing this from Calvetti Michaels, I was taken aback. While many of us—myself included—may assume that the pinnacle of Italian food culture is spaghetti, I learned from this conversation that spaghetti is not a staple dish for many northerners. Instead, Calvetti Michaels told me that her family more often ate foods like ravioli and polenta. Calvetti Michaels even shares a memory in the book about when her grandmother taught her to roll out ravioli with a three-foot long rolling pin. She then provides one of my favorite lines in the entire work, "food is made within the fold of generations."
Calvetti Michaels even mentioned to me that many others have been taken aback by her admitting that her family doesn't normally eat spaghetti. To think of Calvetti Michaels and her family as "not Italian enough" or not "real Italians" because of something as menial as what the people of their region eat is absurd. A Piedmontese family is no less Italian because their regional culture looks a bit different than that of the southern regions. If you want to read more about food culture in Calvetti Michael's family, she has written an essay titled "Polenta" about Thanksgiving dinner in her family, which can be found in The Milk of Almonds, Italian American Women on Food and Culture.
Calvetti Michaels also revealed to me that her Piedmontese family migrated to the United States because they were poor. She confirmed that the notion of northern Italians are rich and southern Italians are poor is not always true. Yet again, I had to reckon with my initial expectations of what it means to be Italian. Just as our stories may not always fit neatly into a box, our culture does not either. The ideas that all Italians should be eating spaghetti and that all northern Italians are richer than southern Italians are based in stereotypes, not reality. If there is anything I've learned with reading The Things Downriver and speaking with Calvetti Michaels, it's that being Italian American does not always look the same for all of us nor do our stories need to neatly follow the expected formula of what a conventionally Italian American story should be.
Like all the best Italian American stories, The Things Downriver is about so much more than being Italian American. Michaels's memories involve an array of life's themes including family relationships, gender roles, religion, language barriers, and the desire for freedom. Of course, it is clear how Calvetti Michaels's Italian American identity often colors all that she details in this narrative of her mapping her childhood memories together, making it a rich account of how one's identities are interwoven and inextricably linked to one's experiences.
A recurring theme in these memories that moved me the most involves the different expectations placed on Calvetti Michaels and her brother Dennis, which make obvious how their genders affected how they were expected to behave. Calvetti Michaels reveals a very traumatic memory in which her brother, who had been playing with a gun, almost shot her by mistake. When this occurred, Calvetti Michaels writes, "It was my fault. I should have known not to climb into the back of the truck." Why Calvetti Michaels felt like she was to be blamed for her brother's actions proves how the "boys will be boys" mentality seeps its way into Italian American upbringings. This is especially true as sons are often favored and treated better since they carry the family's name. Calvetti Michaels also admitted to me in our interview that she often felt like she was "trespassing" when she would ask "too many questions" as a girl. Going to her grandparents' farm was a way for her to feel freer as a girl to explore. Nonetheless, even on the farm when her brother almost accidentally shot her, she was faced with the reminder that as a girl, she must behave a certain way while the brother can practically get away with anything.
Another one of the themes I found noteworthy was religion, specifically how the Catholic institution affected Calvetti Michael's understanding of her identity as Italian American. She shares a memory where her father wanted her to give a nun a vial of water he collected from the grotto of Saint Bernadette. The nun refused the vial perhaps because she did not believe the water was truly from the grotto. This suspicion most certainly must have come from the fact that Calvetti Michaels's father was an Italian immigrant, and thus not to be trusted. Calvetti Michaels had to grapple with the fact that her culture was being, as she has described to me, "rejected by the mainstream."
This memory serves as a humbling remind that Italian Americans did not always have it as easily as we do today. While a lot has changed in that we are not treated nearly as often as untrustworthy, inferiors anymore, The Things Downriver reminds us that the mistreatment many Italian Americans faced was not that long ago and should never be forgotten. We should be grateful that our community has been vastly accepted now by the mainstream, but we should be utilizing this acceptance we've received to help ensure that everyone else is accepted too.
The Things Downriver overall is a riveting account of Denise Calvetti Michaels's childhood memories that contains much nuance as an Italian American narrative. This poetic anti-memoir can help us see Italian American culture in a less monolithic way and can encourage us to think more deeply about Italian American experiences that exist in our memories, in our stories, and in our present lives.


David Fincher's addition to the Alien series was pretty much dismissed on release, but is now often reassessed in the light of the director's subsequent career. It was filmed mostly at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire, though the surface of the alien planet was Blast Beach, Seaham, alongside Dawdon Colliery on the Durham coast.
Blackened with years of detritus from the Seaham Harbour Blast Furnace, the area was recently cleaned up in an extensive restoration programme.
There was more filming at the nearby, and defunct, Blyth Power Station in Bedlington. The station's four landmark chimneys were finally demolished in December 2003.


MINI-WOODY! -- Ultra rare "Cherokee" sized Woody with low original miles, rust-free Southwest Heritage. One cool ride that turns heads!
Excellent Southwest U.S. heritage -- completely rust-free. Unique "mini-woody" is an original Jeep with the full Wagoneer World mechanical restroation. Cosmetically unrestored, this original beauty had one previous repaint, but is otherwise completly cosmetic original.
Non-smoker, cold AC and drives like a champ with full mechanical servicing. Garage-kept for a majority of it's life, this 4x4 beauty is ready for snow, mud, and offroad fun, or is perfect for more refined pavement driving. Cool ride and it will not disappoint.


text:
From the Jan/Feb, 2012 issue of Touchstone
literature philosophy
What Is Man? by Anthony Esolen
What Is Man?
Anthony Esolen on What Raskolnikov Knew & Translators Have Lost
In an otherwise splendid work, the Catholics recently charged with translating the Mass from Latin into English dropped a word of tremendous mystery. On Ash Wednesday, when the priest marks the foreheads of the faithful with ashes, he says, echoing the words of God to Adam after the Fall, "Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return." At least, that is what the priest said when I was a boy. But in the meantime, the word man, in its inclusive sense, has come to be regarded as offensive to women. So the new translators blinked. The crucial word homo in the Latin has been translated as—null. "Remember that you are dust," the priest will say, "and to dust you shall return."
The loss is heavy. Before I discuss the meaning of the word, I should like to recall a scene in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. It is, I believe, the climax of that tremendous work. The young girl Sonia, in love with the hero Raskolnikov, urges him to confess the murder he has committed. She—who has known sin and suffering and degradation in her own life—says that he must go out into the public square, in broad daylight, and throw himself to the ground, crying out that he, he alone, has sinned against all mankind and the whole earth, and that he alone is responsible for all the wickedness that has ever been done. Raskolnikov does exactly that. "Plastered," says a bystander.
"How can such penance make sense," we ask, "when each man is responsible only for his own sins?" But in a mystery that we can hardly begin to grasp, we have all been involved in the sin of Adam and Eve, and therefore in the sins of one another. We must not think of Original Sin as simply a thing that happened long ago, as if our own names were not also Adam and Eve. Yes, Adam is the root, and we perhaps are the stalk or the flower, but the plant is the same. That is why we need to be grafted upon a new root; we need to be branches of a new vine. Says St. Paul: "For as by the disobedience of one man, many were made sinners; so also by the obedience of one, many shall be made just" (Rom. 5:19). My sins are not only mine, but the sins of man, and the sins of man are mine.
No Substitute for Man
It is fascinating to consider, then, how the mystery of our involvement in the sins of one another, and then the mystery of our communion in Christ our Redeemer, is intimated by the very word man. For it is not clear, on logical grounds alone, why there should even be such a usage of the word. We do not speak of The Ascent of Dog, or The Meaning of Horse, or The Glory and Shame of Bee. "The proper study of Mankind is Man," writes Alexander Pope, using that powerful singular term, man, for the being whom he calls "the glory, jest, and riddle of the world." I am not only a man; I am man, fallen man, man longing for the divine, man in dire need of grace, man wandering in the valley of the shadow of death, man dwelling in time and oriented towards eternity. Homo sum, says the character in Terence; nihil humanum alienum mihi puto—I am a man—or I am man; I consider nothing of man as foreign to me.
That very being-for-one-another, even being-in-one-another, is to be found in the universal, singular, personal sense of man. Every language I know of has such a word: Hebrew adam, Greek anthropos, Latin homo, French homme, Spanish hombre, Italian uomo, German Mensch, Anglo Saxon wer, English man. Sometimes the word is of masculine gender, and means human being irrespective of sex (Hebrew, classical Latin). Sometimes the word's secondary signification is "adult male," but with the masculinity not emphasized (later Latin, New Testament Greek). Sometimes the word derives from an older masculine word (German, Anglo Saxon). Sometimes the word's primary signification is adult male, while its secondary signification is human being irrespective of sex (English, the Romance languages). But each of these languages has a word that names man, the universal, including everyone in one being, and therefore also naming each: a universal, singular, and personal term.
A little consideration shows that there is no substitute in English for man. None of the alternatives do the necessary work. Human being is singular and somewhat personal, but it is not a universal term; we do not conceive of the fall of human being. Humanity is abstract and impersonal, and names a quality rather than a being. People is plural, and not necessarily universal; I am not people, and the sin of people might mean the sin of John and Mary and Agnes and Bill, but not the sin of all people considered as one. Mankind is a universal, but not personal. The priest could never say, "Remember, mankind, that thou art dust," because he would then seem to be speaking not to the penitent, but to a vast generality. Men and women is not universal—it excludes children!—and introduces an irrelevant distinction of sex. Person is singular but not universal, and is in any case not limited to man; angels, too, have personal being, as do the Persons of the Holy Trinity.
The people who revile this use of man, then, would have us eliminate the very thought which the word signifies. But that is unreasonable. It is as if one were to say, "We shall not use the word tree." What substitute is there? Why should we not have a word for a thing that is in our common experience? Similarly, why should we not have a word that corresponds to our mysterious sense that each one of us carries the burden of all, and that the good of all is oriented towards the good of each?
The Good of Man
In The Person and the Common Good, Jacques Maritain reminds us of these complementary modes of man's being. We are weak creatures. We cannot provide, by ourselves, for our most basic needs, not to mention the fulfillment of our beings. We are therefore necessarily social, and must yield to the common good: "By reason of its deficiencies—evidences of its condition as an individual in the species—the human person is present as part of a whole which is greater and better than its parts, and of which the common good is worth more than the good of each part."
And yet the common good cannot be the good of a mere collective, just as the common good itself cannot be described quantitatively, as all forms of utilitarianism attempt to do. That is because our common good is a good of personal beings: "If the common good of human society were uniquely and exclusively a sum of temporal advantages and achievements, like the common good—not really common but totalitarian—of an apiary or an anthill, it would surely be nonsensical to sacrifice the life of a human person for it."
My existence in society requires me to live for others, and at times the common good, the good of other persons and not simply of a hive, may require me to endure great sacrifices, and even to risk my life. We are not atoms of self-will colliding against one another, as in the anarchy of Hobbes's "state of Nature." Yet Maritain is careful to point out that "it is the human person who enters into society," a person "ordained to the absolute" and "summoned to a destiny beyond time."
From this point of view, "the human person, as a spiritual totality referred to the transcendent whole, surpasses and is superior to all temporal societies." "A single human soul," he writes, "is worth more than the whole universe of material goods. There is nothing higher than the immortal soul, save God. With respect to the eternal destiny of the soul, society exists for each person and is subordinated to it."
The goods that transcend political society do not swaddle us in individualism, as they do not submerge us into the collective. They include, Maritain says, "the natural law, the rule of justice and the requirements of fraternal love; the life of the spirit and all that which, in us, is a natural beginning of contemplation; the immaterial dignity of the truth, in all domains and all degrees however humble they may be, of theoretical knowledge, and the immaterial dignity of beauty."
In other words, the good of a man is the good of man, and the good of man is the good of a man; and both find their fulfillment in God. This is not an equation to be solved, but a mystery of love to be lived. The man who understands it does not say, "My good is in its essence inferior to the good of a million others taken together," nor, "My good is my own, and I will pursue it, and let the other millions pursue theirs." Human society is a whole, says Maritain, made up of wholes, and the wholes are persons, meant for the joy of love. That means that we can never purchase our good at the price of another person; his good is mine.
But we may, for the good of others, engage in heroic acts of love: "And when the person sacrifices to the common good of the city that which is dearest to it, suffers torture and gives its life for the city, in these very acts because it wills what is good and acts in accordance with justice, it still loves its own soul, in accordance with the order of charity, more than the city and the common good of the city," just as the hermit, who, "seeming to forget the city," contemplates beauty and truth, and in so doing, "still serves the common good of the city and in an eminent fashion."
The New, True Man
When we use the word man, then, in this universal, singular, and personal sense, we affirm the rightness of Raskolnikov's act, of summing in himself all the sins of man, even the heavy sins of the cruel and grasping old woman he had murdered. Just as it would make no sense to say, "Man will kill Man so that Man may live," so we cannot separate ourselves from one another, as if we were members of separate species, or drown ourselves in a collectivity, as if we each of us did not stand, personally, for the whole.
The good of the man I behold in the mirror is the good of Man; that is the truth that individualists suppress; and the good of Man is the good of the man I behold in the mirror; that is the truth that collectivists suppress. This good is transcendent and is found in the God of love; that is the truth that both the individualist and the collectivist suppress.
Who is that, gleaning among the dry husks left by the reapers? It is Man. Who is that, looking enraptured upon the beauty of the night sky? It is Man. Who is that, whispering into the ear of the drowsy child, filled with milk from the breast? It is Man, and so is the child. Who is that, sucking its thumb in the warmth of the womb? Man; and it is Man, stretched upon the bed, breathing his last heavy breaths in this world.
"Turn back, O Man," says the old hymn, "forswear thy foolish ways!" We can do so—Man can do so, and I, Man, can do so—because of the One who called himself the Son of Man. He, too, is Man. Not simply an adult male, a human being, a person, a man, but Man himself, sinless, one with the Father. When we ask, "What is Man?", we now can look to Jesus, and say, with the unwitting Pontius Pilate, Ecce homo! Behold the Man, or, mysteriously, Behold, Man.
We may be confident then, that when the Father looks to Man, he sees not Adam, but Jesus. He is the new root, the new vine, the new olive tree. In him, the true Man, must Man be grafted, to live. Says St. Paul: "Put off, according to former conversation, the old man, who is corrupted according to the desire of error. And be renewed in the spirit of your mind: and put on the new man, who according to God is created in justice and holiness of truth" (Eph. 4:22–24).
That is emphatically not a new self, as the botched translations will put it—as if conversion were a secular matter of turning over a new leaf. No, one leaf is much like another, unless we are grafted upon the new root. We must die in the man named Adam to live in the true man, Man himself, whose name is Jesus. It is astonishing to consider that the entire history of salvation should be possessed implicitly by all peoples, by Man, in the otherwise hardly explicable sense of that one word. •
Anthony Esolen is a faculty member and Writer-in-Residence at Northeast Catholic College in Warner, New Hampshire, and the author of many books, including: Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity (St. Benedict Press), Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), and Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery). He has also translated Dante's Divine Comedy (Random House).
more on literature from the online archives
Rescuing Cervantes
on Reading Don Quixote in Its Original Christian Context by Luis Cortest
30.5—Sept/Oct 2017
The Unforgotten
on Costly Grace in Breece D'J Pancake's Flyover Country by Casey Chalk
The Anglo-Saxon Evangel
The Beowulf Poet Was a Shrewd Christian Apologist by Douglas Wilson
The Icon of Materialism
Why Scientism's Cherished Progress Narrative Fails by Jonathan Witt
Dying of Despair
on the Loss of True Community & Rising Political Desperation by Karl D. Stephan
31.5—September/October 2018
Liberalism Occupied
The Rise of the Gnostic Liberal State After Christianity by Andrew Latham

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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Prior to the beginning of 2019, Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist were all canceled leaving fans bewildered. The Marvel and Netflix partnership that brought in millions of viewers over the years is no longer, as Disney plans to move all Marvel content to their own streaming service. The news left fans playing the guessing game as to whether this would be the last season of The Punisher, and its titular character Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal). Well, if this truly is the last season of The Punisher to ever grace the Netflix streaming service fans will be excited and maybe somewhat bitter to know this is one of the best seasons yet.
After the events of the previous season, former Marine-turned-vigilante Frank Castle (Bernthal) is now a free man, living a quiet life on the road, and staying out of trouble until trouble knocks on his door. Thwarting the attempted murder of a young girl (Giorgia Whigham) at a bar leads Castle back into the life of the Punisher, putting a target on his back from new and returning adversaries.
We, the audience have grown to associate the Punisher with revenge whether it be through the comics he is known for or every episode he has appeared in throughout the Netflix Marvel series. He is a one-man army, who brutally takes down anyone who has wronged him no matter the cost. Castle may have got justice against the people who murdered his family in season one, but he has yet to find peace. For a man like Castle, there is no quietness to be had, nor a life of happiness, only violence, and from the first episode alone, season two makes that clear.
The Punisher is described by bystanders as nonhuman and sometimes even as an animal, and when you put him a corner he is at his most dangerous. The showrunners made sure to capture that first sentence perfectly, as the gunfights, and overall action is more brutal than the previous season. The number of times you will verbally utter "damn", "oh my God" or "Jesus" throughout the show is probably more than you will be willing to admit.
There is enough callbacks, reveals, and returning characters to make fans happy, but new villain John Pilgrim (Josh Stewart) serves as the most interesting character. Pilgrim is a highly devoted Christian man with a moral compass, yet he is a skilled assassin intent on killing the young girl Castle protects. Just when Castle day couldn't get any worse, his friend now enemy Billy Russo (Ben Barnes) now dawning the name of Jigsaw is hellbent on revenge and after the events of season one.
Season two is rather interesting because it poses a question from the very start to the very end "Does the world need a Punisher?" by the end of the season, Castle answers that question very clearly. If this is the last season of The Punisher it is a fitting conclusion to Frank Castle's character arc, while still leaving the door open for a potential season three.
To help us continue to create content, please consider supporting us on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/filmera.


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Tag Archives: Edna Staebler Award
Pauline Dakin's RUN, HIDE, REPEAT Wins the Edna Staebler Award!
Posted on September 25, 2018 by Administrator
We are thrilled to announce that Pauline Dakin has won the prestigious 2018 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-fiction for her book RUN, HIDE, REPEAT: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood (Viking)! The award is administered by Wilfrid Laurier University and honours Canadian writers who have written a first or second work of non-fiction, and carries an award of $10,000.
From Award Juror Bruce Gillespie:
"This is a true story unlike any other you've read that will keep you guessing from beginning to end. More than just a mystery, Dakin's memoir is also a moving reflection on the complexity of family relationships."
Pauline Dakin will be celebrated at two public events at Wilfrid Laurier University on November 8th and November 9th.
Please visit the following link for more information: https://www.wlu.ca/news/news-releases/2018/sept/edna-staebler-creative-non-fiction-winner.html
Posted in Awards, News Releases	| Tagged Awards, Edna Staebler Award, Pauline Dakin, Run Hide Repeat, Shaun Bradley, Viking
Hot Art by Joshua Knelman
Posted on November 13, 2012 by Administrator
Hot Art: Chasing Thieves and Detectives through the Secret World of Stolen Art by Joshua Knelman has won the 2012 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction.
The award is being presented this evening at a dinner at Laurier's Waterloo campus, at 7 p.m.
"Hot Art is a hugely satisfying and meticulously researched real-life detective story that will surprise and intrigue you," said Ute Lischke, award juror and Laurier professor of English and Film Studies.
Hot Art is published by
CANADA (English): D & M Publishers
US: Tin House Books, Fall 2012
KOREA: Sigongsa Co., Ltd.
It began with a burglary at a local art gallery and turned into an international investigation. Hot Art traces Joshua Knelman's five-year immersion into the shadowy world of art theft, where he uncovers a devious game that takes him from Egypt to Los Angeles, New York to London, and back again, through a web of deceit, violence, and corruption.
Joshua Knelman's investigation finds there are only a handful of detectives, FBI agents and lawyers fighting a global battle against a thriving black market that is estimated to be one of the largest in the world. Meanwhile, the chain of criminals moves from thugs on the street to multinational organized crime syndicates, to a global network of art dealers who wash the artworks' provenance clean again. In a surprise ending, Knelman learns that corruption can appear in the unlikeliest places.
Joshua Knelman is an award-winning arts and investigative journalist and editor. He was a founding editorial member of The Walrus magazine. His writing has appeared in Toronto Life, Saturday Night, The National Post, and the Globe and Mail. Knelman's feature article "Artful Crimes" in The Walrus won a gold National Magazine Award for Arts and Entertainment. Knelman is also the fiction editor of Four Letter Word: New Love Letters, which has sold in over ten territories worldwide.
The Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction is a unique award – the only one offered in Canada for the genre. Established in 1991 by writer and literary journalist Edna Staebler, it recognizes a Canadian writer of a first or second published book with a Canadian locale and/or significance.
Creative non-fiction is literary not journalistic. The writer does not merely give information but intimately shares an experience with the reader by telling a factual story using the devices of fiction, including original research, well-crafted interpretive writing, personal discovery or experience, the creative use of language or approach to the subject matter, dialogue, and a narrative about people who come alive. Rather than mere objectivity, the book should have feeling, and should be a compelling, engaging read.
The Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction is awarded annually and valued at $10,000.
More about the award can be found at:
http://www.wlu.ca/page.php?grp_id=2529&p=11277
Hot Art also received the 2012 Arthur Ellis Award for Best Crime Non-Fiction awarded by Crime Writers of Canada and was selected for Amazon.ca's Top 100 Best Books of 2011 and Year-end Top Ten Non-Fiction lists.
Posted in News Releases	| Tagged Arthur Ellis Awards, Edna Staebler Award, Hot Art, Joshua Knelman


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import datetime
from south.db import db
from south.v2 import SchemaMigration
from django.db import models

class Migration(SchemaMigration):

    def forwards(self, orm):

        # Adding field 'TreeItem.access_loggedin'
        db.add_column('sitetree_treeitem', 'access_loggedin', self.gf('django.db.models.fields.BooleanField')(default=False, db_index=True), keep_default=False)

    def backwards(self, orm):

        # Deleting field 'TreeItem.access_loggedin'
        db.delete_column('sitetree_treeitem', 'access_loggedin')

    models = {
        'auth.permission': {
            'Meta': {'ordering': "('content_type__app_label', 'content_type__model', 'codename')", 'unique_together': "(('content_type', 'codename'),)", 'object_name': 'Permission'},
            'codename': ('django.db.models.fields.CharField', [], {'max_length': '100'}),
            'content_type': ('django.db.models.fields.related.ForeignKey', [], {'to': "orm['contenttypes.ContentType']"}),
            'id': ('django.db.models.fields.AutoField', [], {'primary_key': 'True'}),
            'name': ('django.db.models.fields.CharField', [], {'max_length': '50'})
        },
        'contenttypes.contenttype': {
            'Meta': {'ordering': "('name',)", 'unique_together': "(('app_label', 'model'),)", 'object_name': 'ContentType', 'db_table': "'django_content_type'"},
            'app_label': ('django.db.models.fields.CharField', [], {'max_length': '100'}),
            'id': ('django.db.models.fields.AutoField', [], {'primary_key': 'True'}),
            'model': ('django.db.models.fields.CharField', [], {'max_length': '100'}),
            'name': ('django.db.models.fields.CharField', [], {'max_length': '100'})
        },
        'sitetree.tree': {
            'Meta': {'object_name': 'Tree'},
            'alias': ('django.db.models.fields.CharField', [], {'unique': 'True', 'max_length': '80', 'db_index': 'True'}),
            'id': ('django.db.models.fields.AutoField', [], {'primary_key': 'True'})
        },
        'sitetree.treeitem': {
            'Meta': {'unique_together': "(('tree', 'alias'),)", 'object_name': 'TreeItem'},
            'access_loggedin': ('django.db.models.fields.BooleanField', [], {'default': 'False', 'db_index': 'True'}),
            'access_perm_type': ('django.db.models.fields.IntegerField', [], {'default': '1'}),
            'access_permissions': ('django.db.models.fields.related.ManyToManyField', [], {'to': "orm['auth.Permission']", 'symmetrical': 'False', 'blank': 'True'}),
            'access_restricted': ('django.db.models.fields.BooleanField', [], {'default': 'False', 'db_index': 'True'}),
            'alias': ('sitetree.models.CharFieldNullable', [], {'db_index': 'True', 'max_length': '80', 'null': 'True', 'blank': 'True'}),
            'description': ('django.db.models.fields.TextField', [], {'default': "''", 'blank': 'True'}),
            'hidden': ('django.db.models.fields.BooleanField', [], {'default': 'False', 'db_index': 'True'}),
            'hint': ('django.db.models.fields.CharField', [], {'default': "''", 'max_length': '200', 'blank': 'True'}),
            'id': ('django.db.models.fields.AutoField', [], {'primary_key': 'True'}),
            'inbreadcrumbs': ('django.db.models.fields.BooleanField', [], {'default': 'True', 'db_index': 'True'}),
            'inmenu': ('django.db.models.fields.BooleanField', [], {'default': 'True', 'db_index': 'True'}),
            'insitetree': ('django.db.models.fields.BooleanField', [], {'default': 'True', 'db_index': 'True'}),
            'parent': ('django.db.models.fields.related.ForeignKey', [], {'to': "orm['sitetree.TreeItem']", 'null': 'True', 'blank': 'True'}),
            'sort_order': ('django.db.models.fields.IntegerField', [], {'default': '0', 'db_index': 'True'}),
            'title': ('django.db.models.fields.CharField', [], {'max_length': '100'}),
            'tree': ('django.db.models.fields.related.ForeignKey', [], {'to': "orm['sitetree.Tree']"}),
            'url': ('django.db.models.fields.CharField', [], {'max_length': '200', 'db_index': 'True'}),
            'urlaspattern': ('django.db.models.fields.BooleanField', [], {'default': 'False', 'db_index': 'True'})
        }
    }

    complete_apps = ['sitetree']

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


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This API defines the REST web-service interface your company must implement to enable Arghon users to communicate directly with your company in real-time.
Note: A business account is required to utilize this API.
Click here for Interactive API XSD File.
This is the name of an item the user is interested in. So it could be "paper towel", "chicken", "sony television", etc.
The attribute of the name in the object parameter the user wants information on. For example: target could be the price, amount, etc.
Verb applies more to a condition of the value in the target field. An example verb could be the words: "on sale"
This is usually today's date in XML Format YYYY-MM-DD. It allows the user to specify a date for when he or she wants the information .
Example: The user may want to know the price on a specific day such as black Friday. Black Friday's date would be in this field.
Example: it could have "latest" or "lowest", referring to the price of apples.
This field holds "command value" of a list item the user selected from the previous interaction where you presented the user with a list of items to choose from.
You should always check for userselection first. If one exists, then it's a follow up question.
Note: When the userselection has a value, object, verb, date, target, and adjective, parameters will be empty.
The UTC offset in minutes from the user's local time. This could be negative or positive.
This is the arghon developer key. This will allow your web service to authenticate the caller.
A name that describes the answer. In most cases it is the value in the target parameter from the request.
0: The request was successful, value or list field has the answer.
-1: Your web-service does not have an answer to the question.
-nn: Any other negative number is a system or authentication error.
Place a description of the error in the value field.
13: Answer suited for age 13 and above.
-1: Answer has violence/strong language or sexually explicit content.
0: Plain text. The value is displayed to the user as is.
1: Answer is a list of 2 or more listItemType to choose from.
4: "pictureurl" element in response is of a coupon.
a. Coupons should be no more 3"x4" inches in size.
b. The value field describes the coupon to the user.
c. The amount field has the value of the coupon.
Set to 1 if the result can be cached. This allows Arghon to cache the result without having to go back to your web service each time a user asks the same question. A cached answer lasts 24 hours.
This is a number that communicates quantity, price or value. In most cases the default is 1.
The answer to a question is either a single value or a list the user must choose from.
A list consists of 2 or more ListItemType.
See the answerformat field documentation for additional information.
An optional expire date. Primarily used for holding the expiration date of a coupon.
This is the answer to the user's request (question).
An answer can be a list or a plain text single value.
The answerformat field is used to determine which to use.
A URL to a video with additional information. It could be a YouTube video or another source.
This is the latitude coordinate of a location where the answer can be found. It can be a store or place of business.
This is the longitude coordinate of a location where the answer can be found. It can be a store or place of business.
Example -73.12345. Set to empty value if it is not applicable.


The New Breed of Team Applications: Which Are Right for You?
The purpose of this article is to help you decide which application will work best for you. Obviously, the best way to figure that out is to try them; they all have fully featured free accounts. However, the harsh reality is that most of these tools are designed to help smaller teams work more effectively. Obviously, what works best for each team will depend on the team, but size is one important consideration.
For most of these products, a team of 2–5 people is good, 10–25 is fine, 100-plus is probably a bit much. Not that it's impossible, and large teams are using some of these applications. But each of these applications is designed to simplify communication—and the reality is that the larger your team, the more difficult it is to communicate.
Also, note that most of these applications are not designed to integrate well with other tools. Some, such as CalendarHub, have importing/exporting capabilities, but none of them are going to get tightly integrated into your existing toolset.
The ideal market for each of these tools really is smaller teams that need to get simple things done in a simple way—teams that need the software to get out of the way and let them set up tasks and milestones, share files, build calendars, create and share documents, etc. If you need big, bad features, these little startups are not the place to look.
At the same time, though, it's difficult to argue with the price point. The most expensive applications are Basecamp, which will part you with $99/month in exchange for unlimited projects for unlimited people and more than a gigabyte of shared storage, and Central Desktop, which can run up to $249/month for 50 workspaces and more than 3GB of storage. Most businesses will sit in the $24/month range at Basecamp, $25/month with Central Desktop, or will spend even less on the other tools.
Remember, these are not expensive tools. In fact, once you find the tool that's right for you, you'll likely part with your $25/month easily, since you won't be able to figure out how you used to live without that tool.


Vella La Vella workshop participants. Photo credit: MNURP.
The Ministry of National Unity, Reconciliation and Peace has successfully completed a four days workshop on Strengthening and Empowering Leadership in the Community at Kuava Village, South Vella La Vella, Western Province.
The workshop brought together chiefs, traditional leaders, church leaders, women and people of Vella La Vella to empower and strengthen chiefs and traditional leaders in the communities about making good decisions.
Speaking at the workshop, Western Provincial Minister of State, Community and Church Affairs Honourable Jane Tozaka said the workshop marks the first step to peace by bringing together chiefs, traditional leaders and women.
She said chiefs and traditional leaders are important in the society as peace brokers and as the first people to settle disputes and problems in the community.
Meanwhile, a Council of Chiefs called the Vella La Vella Council of Chiefs was also established during the four days workshop.


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If you're a commenter on Slugger, then please read this short note on civility, pain and learning…
Mick Fealty on January 4, 2023, 12:20 pm | Readers 3741
I inadvertently got caught up in the staid drama of the US House of Representatives failing three times to elect a speaker. A small band of hold outs when to (in my limited view) the ludicrous extreme of voting for someone who didn't want the job.
It is emblematic of a modern era in which signalling discontent is more politically profitable pastime than fastening down the more challenging job of getting stuff done. This was a protest against the 'secret Congress' where bipartisan deals come from.
As many of you know having been on Twitter for 15 years I left last June. I occasionally keep an eye on things, but by and large that phase of my life is over. I found it of great value in the early days when it offered a breaking news service second to none.
My main discontent is with journalistic institutions sensationalising their headlines in order to keep up eyeball numbers on their stories, rather than selling their sound judgement and analysis. Emotions sell on Twitter; thoughts, not so much.
Indeed according to Science Magazine found that the time taken for falsehoods to reach 1,500 people was six times shorter than the truth. We shouldn't need Elon Musk's short fused tolerance to public criticism to tell us this is a bit of a problem.
Triggering is the best way to sell content, it seems. In a study for the Journal of Marketing Research in April 2012 found that the top emoticons for the most emailed stories on The New York Times where Anxiety (20%), Awe (30%) and Anger (34%).
So why am I telling you all this (again)?
Well, something similar seems to be at work in the Slugger comment zone. Post Musk there are calls for a return to the old blogosphere, but in my view, whilst most writers now blog in their own name, anonymity remains in the comments section.
Authentication for commenters is tricky, especially if, as Slugger has always had, you have a determination to keep the conversation open to all political opinions. We have been greatly helped in this regard by a dedicated moderation team.
But the whole point is that the mods are only supposed to be there to pick up on the outliers who flagrantly ignore our commenting rules. The number one responsibility is on each individual to behave in ways that allow others to say their piece.
The rules are drafted in such a way that we make it clear that there is no unacceptable belief, only acceptable and unacceptable behaviours. But subjectively I accept the it can be difficult to tease these out as they become habits of thought and feeling.
It is perfectly natural to puzzle and fret over the behaviour of others and try to understand their intentions, values and attitudes. But the play the ball not the man rule is there to cut off that "shortcut" (because it's not a shortcut at all).
One, because no one really understands other people (so the effort expended in reading minds will always fail) and two the value of respectful engagement between people who have different knowledge sets lies in the learning that takes place.
As my friend David Amerland says in his book on Intentional:
Our past is always in our present. The future we expect won't arrive until we identify and remove the obstacles that hold us back, and the promise of 'shortcuts' can often blind us to the fact they are not actually shortcuts at all.
I set Slugger up 20 years ago in order to inform myself (and then, because it was a public notebook, others) about what was actually going on in terms of Northern Ireland, a place I had physically left nearly twenty years before).
That remains my intention, and by and large it has worked well amongst those who are willing to listen and to reciprocate in the comments area. People don't necessarily change their minds because of this engagement, but they can learn from civility.
To escape the destiny of our past we have to strive in our present. That doesn't mean working hard until everyone sees the world the way we do, but rather using these rules of civility to broaden the vision of the future we wish to offer others.
When it comes to Slugger (and Northern Ireland) it is no one's responsibility to police any of us into 'acceptable' positions, but rather the point is to maintain a space in which everyone can take on a learning opportunity, preferably with both hands.
If you are in any doubt, please read the rules, and crack on. Just remember your only entitlement is the pain you experience in encountering people whose world view you cannot understand or you think is wrong about everything you believe is important.
Offer it up (as my late mum used to say), move on or engage and prepare to learn hugely from what can be a troubling experience. Otherwise, and I only suggest it gently, Slugger is probably not the place for you.
Mick Fealty
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
Categories Society and Culture


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IR Theory & Practice
Making Connections Between the Classroom and the Real World
My name is James Devine. I am an Associate Professor at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick Canada, where I teach international politics. My research focuses on the politics of the Middle East, and the domestic politics and foreign policy of Iran in particular. This blog is intended primarily for my students, though all are welcome. Its purpose is to make the connection between the theories and concepts discussed in class, and current events in the real world.
About Me: James Devine
Syria: A Year On, Chemical Weapons Attacks Persist International Action for Deterrence, Justice Ineffective -Human Rights Watch
How social media took us from Tahrir Square to Donald Trump -MIT Technology Review
Artificial Intelligence Is Now a Pentagon Priority. Will Silicon Valley Help? -NYTimes
America Is Living James Madison's Nightmare –The Atlantic
'Big price to pay': Inside Trump's decision to bomb Syria -Washington Post
Center for International Policy Studies Blog
Middle East Channel
Mideast Matrix
Musings on Iraq
Palestinian Refugee ResearchNet
PaxSims
Robin Wright's Blog
The Duck of Minerva
War is Boring
World Policy Blog
Al Monitor
i-Politics
Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP)
The Iran Primer
Perspectives: Left Right and In-Between
American Enterprise Institute: Foreign and Defense Policy
The Fraiser Institute
The Monthly Review
1001 2301 3231 3321 3331 3351 4310 4321 4991 American Foreign Policy Anarchism Arab Spring Bahrain Canadian Foreign Policy China Colonial History constructivism Development Egypt Ethics EU Gender Health/Food/Environment Ideology & Foreign Policy IPE Iran Iraq ISIS Islam Israel ISU 2015 ISU 2016 ISU 2017 Jordan Kurds Lebanon Levels of Analysis liberalism Libya Marxism Oman Palestine Petro Politics Political Islam realism Russia Saudi Arabia Sudan Syria Technology Trump Tunisia Turkey Yemen
A Better Solution to the Kurdish Arms Issue -Atlantic Council
I don't actually agree with suggestions made in this article, as I will explain at the end. However it does provide a glimpse into the complexities of the US position in regards to arming the Kurds:
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/a-better-solution-to-the-kurdish-arms-issue
1. The strategic calculation is complex: "To date, the Obama administration has resisted calls to circumvent the Iraqi government, for understandable reasons. Authorizing the export of weapons to the Peshmerga would publicly challenge the authority and sovereignty of the central Iraqi government, an embarrassment that Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi does not need now. Providing weapons and ammunition to Kurdish units, according to Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter, "could put some of our personnel at risk" and could potentially encourage the Kurdistan Regional Government to work for independence far sooner than they originally planned. Bypassing the central government in Baghdad would also run contradictory to what US policy in Iraq has been since 2003: to support and work for a unified, federal Iraq for all Iraqis, regardless of ethnicity or sectarian identity."
2. The debate has got sucked into partisan politics in Washington: "The White House, Pentagon, and State Department remain opposed (a position supported by Prime Minister Abadi's administration), but a growing constituency in the US Congress have recently pushed to make direct arms shipments to the Peshmerga as the law of the land. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce has reintroduced a bill (with forty-four cosponsors) first crafted last year that would authorize defense exports to the Kurds for an emergency period of three-years for the sole purpose of defending the people of the Kurdistan region and facilitating military operations against ISIS. Senators Joni Ernst and Barbara Boxer introduced a companion bill in the Senate for the same purpose. The House Armed Services Committee, in the meantime, went a step further—designating the Peshmerga and "Sunni tribal security forces" as countries in order to accelerate US weapons shipments under the Arms Control Export Act."
3. US leverage with Baghdad is limited: "…Obama giving a tough, credible ultimatum to the Iraqi government. If the Iraqi Ministry of Defense does not deliver to the Kurds the needed defense materiel previously agreed upon by Washington, Baghdad, and Erbil, the United States will reevaluate its policy of routing all weapons shipments through the Iraqi government and extend its support to members of Congress who are working to change the law."
The problem with this suggestion is that using threats and brinksmanship, even within an alliance, is a very dangerous game. The bigger the credibility gap the more likely it is to blow-up in your face and it would be very difficult for the US president to make this threat credibly. If Obama was forced to follow through, he would alienate Baghdad and open the door even further to Iranian influence. Even worse, damaging relations with Baghdad would mean weakening the anti-ISIS coalition at a critical time. Given these contingencies, even if Obama really was willing to pay the price, there is a very good chance that the Abadi government will think he is bluffing. If the threat failed, not only would Obama have to deal with the problems above, his long term credibility, and the credibility of the US government would be further diminished. After his failure to follow through after the Assad government was accused of using chemical weapons, that is the last thing Obama needs. The bottom line is that the US still needs the Abadi government and Abadi is not going to get turfed out like Maliki, at least not in the near future. So tempting as it may be to start making threats and declaring ultimatums, it is not likely to work.
Tags American Foreign Policy, Iraq, ISIS, Kurds
Fate of Kurdish presidency divides Iraqi Kurds -al Monitor
Although democratic institutions have been able to establish themselves in the Kurdish autonomous area better than most places in the Middle East, the KRG is still in a process of transition. In addition to its democratic side, the political system is still dependent on patronage organized around the two main factions, the PUK and the KDP, and corruption and nepotism are serious problems. Not surprisingly, there is a tension between the two parts of the system. Democracy depends on the possibility of a regular changes in government and leadership, patronage depends on their continuity. As the current term of President Massoud Barzani comes to an end, this tension is being highlighted. There are questions about whether it is time for Barzani to step aside and whether it is time to change the political system to break up the power of the two factions. Of course, all of this is happening with the war going on in the background. This is not a crisis in the sense that it will cause the collapse of the Kurdish political system, or lead to open factional conflict. However, it is a serious political dilemma with long term consequences in terms of trust and democratic culture.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/iraq-kurdistan-president-barzani-term-parliamentary-system.html
Tags Iraq, Kurds
The Middle Eastern Mesh -The Economist
A nice, straightforward interactive graph of the current pattern of alliances and support in the Middle East… well, as nice and straightforward as possible….
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2015/04/daily-chart-0?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/themiddleeasternmesh
Tags 3331, Arab Spring
The Fall of Ramadi: Daesh's Next Move -RUSI
"The Islamic State, or Daesh, once again showed its ability to surprise observers by its swift capturing of the Iraqi provincial capital of Anbar, Ramadi. But should it have been a surprise? Arguably, no. Should we be surprised by further moves by Daesh to continue to extend the reach of their self-proclaimed Caliphate? The answer, again, has to be no.
Why is this the case? Firstly, as has been well-documented, the very DNA of Daesh is built upon consolidating its hold on territory already under its dominion, and to expand the Caliphate in an ever-growing initiative that would, at its end, be global in scope. The leader of Daesh, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is clearly some way off achieving this final aim but, for now, he has plenty of opportunities to continue his strategy of expansionism in the chaotic world that is the present-day Middle East."
https://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C555B4CB37F241/#.VVuKtJOrHSj
Tags 3331, Iraq, ISIS
Kurdish-Shi'a Tensions in Iraq Amid the Struggle Against the Islamic State -Jamestown TM
"Although the conflict in Iraq is often portrayed as a conflict between Shi'as, Kurds and Sunnis, the above developments and dynamics show that there are many other internal political and tribal divisions and tensions, including among the Kurds themselves. However, despite some recent tensions and speculation over the potential for conflict between the Kurds and Shi'a militias, there has been a considerable amount of military cooperation against the Islamic State. Moreover, Kurdish and Shi'a forces cannot afford to fight each other as long as the fight against the Islamic State continues. Thus, without a major crisis—for instance, caused by Kurdish President Barzani attempting to unilaterally annex the disputed territories without approval from Baghdad (as he threatened to do in July)—it seems unlikely that Kurdish control over these areas will actively be challenged by Shi'a militias, and, therefore, the status quo will continue. However, tensions could still erupt if there are fresh disputes between Baghdad and Erbil…"
http://www.jamestown.org/programs/tm/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=43918&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=26&cHash=f85ca462d87af1cd7d628a81613caac9#.VVl8Q9qqqkp
Tags Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Kurds
Will Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson enter politics? -Al Monitor
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/05/hassan-khomeini-assembly-of-experts-elections-politics.html
The endless maneuvering between Iran's various factions is always fascinating. This article is doubly interesting though, because it highlights the complexities of institutionalizing charismatic leadership. Not to over simplify the creation of the Islamic Republic, but one of the main reasons it was able to survive and beat back its opponents was the political aura that surrounded its leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. One of the main challenges the regime has faced has been to transition from political authority based on this charisma to authority based on the institutions of the state and the current elite. Although there has been a lot of progress, the regime still relies on the connection to Khomeini and the revolution for much of its legitimacy. Iranian political conservatives in particular try to associate themselves with the late Imam, and the current leader, Ali Khamenie is often pictured next to his predecessor. Therefore, not only is it ironic that Khomeini's grandson seems to represent a more "moderate" trend in Iranian politics, it represents a clash between the old charisma and the new institutionalized authority of the state.
Tags Iran
Is Syria's war edging towards an outcome? -BBC
"…the outlook for the embattled Syrian leader undoubtedly looks grimmer now than at any time over the past two years.
Some of his adversaries and critics believe he is already gasping on the ropes and that there could be a sudden dramatic collapse at almost any moment."
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-32703945
Before we write the Assad regime off a few things to keep in mind:
1. The Syrian civil war has gone back and forth since it began. At the end of 2012 it looked like only a matter of time before the Assad regime was toppled. By the end of 2013, the Syrian opposition was divided and bolstered by the Shi'a militias organized by Iran, the Assad regime was on the offensive. Now, a little over a year later, the non-ISIS Syrian opposition seems to have regrouped and the Assad regime is looking shaky again. This is not the first time someone said it was the beginning of the end only to find out it was just another turn in the road.
2. The opposition is fairly cohesive now, because they are united by the pressure that was being put on them by ISIS, the Assad regime and its supporting Shi'a militias. It's one thing to cooperate when your back is up against the wall, it is another once you start to win and control territory. We will see if the various opposition groups start to squabble again once they have something to fight over and their is less pressure on them.
3. The opposition has also been more cohesive because their supporters -Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar- are also cooperating. We will see how long that lasts. It will be particularly interesting to see how the Saudis react if groups they do not like start to dominate in Syria. And, it will be interesting to see how much control the three states have over their proxies on the ground if local disputes emerge between them.
4. It is far from clear that the non-ISIS opposition can actually "win". It is one thing to carve out a chunk of territory and deny control to the Assad regime, it is another to depose the regime and/or take control of the country.
Tags 3321, Arab Spring, Syria


Querétaro took the lead but couldn't hold it as Monterrey came back for a 2-1 win. The result keeps the Rayados perfect this season, while the Gallos Blancos saw their own unbeaten start to the Apertura ended.
Monterrey came out attacking and Tiago Volpi had to be alert early on to keep José María Basanta from opening the scoring. A corner kick nearly gave the Rayados the breaktrhough, but Luis Romo and Miguel Ángel Samudio were able to clear the ball off the line to keep it 0-0.
Then, in the 20th minute, Nicolás Sánchez was called for a foul inside the box and Querétaro had the chance to take the lead from the penalty spot. Edson Puch stepped up to take the PK and he converted it to make it 0-1 for the visitors.
Sánchez redeemed himself just a few minutes later, though, when he headed the ball past Volpi to tie the game 1-1.
Monterrey kept pressing as they looked to complete the comeback, and Avilés Hurtado won a penalty after being fouled by Hiram Mier. Sánchez stepped up to take it, but he couldn't get enough power behind it and the opportunity went begging.
In the second half, Daniel Villalva made a goal-line clearance as Monterrey continued to search for a second goal. Then at the other end, Marcelo Barovero was forced into a great save to keep out a long-range shot from Edson Puch.
Finally, in the 89th minute, Monterrey broke through Querétaro's determined defense. Dorlan Pabón sent a low cross into the box; it was just out of the reach of Rogelio Funes Mori, but Hurtado was there at the back post to make it 2-1.
With the 2-1 win, Monterrey reaches nine points while Querétaro still has four.
Monterrey: Marcelo Barovero, Nicolás Sánchez, José María Basanta, John Stefan Medina, Celso Ortiz (Arturo González 74′), Jesús Gallardo, Jonathan González, Rogelio Funes Mori (Jesús Molina 90′), Jonathan Urretaviscaya (Dorlan Pabón 66′), Avilés Hurtado, Rodolfo Pizarro.
Querétaro: Tiago Volpi, Luis Romo, Miguel Ángel Samudio, Hiram Mier, Aldo Arellano (Javier Güemez 62′), Jaime Gómez, Marcel Ruíz, Everaldo Stum, Edson Puch, Daniel Villalva (Jordi Cortizo 70′), Matías Britos (Erbin Trejo 83′).
This entry was posted in Apertura 2018, Liga MX, Soccer and tagged futbol, Gallos Blancos, highlights, jornada 3, Liga MX, lineup, Monterrey, Querétaro, Rayados, recap, soccer, week 3 on August 5, 2018 by Alex.


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Interview: bartender Kate Grutman (Sotto)
Bartenders & Mixologists
By Joshua Lurie
Venice Beach native Kate Grutman gained an appreciation for cocktails and bartending during her days managing The Doheny, when an all-star crew of Vincenzo Marianella, Marcos Tello and Eric Alperin anchored 213's bygone private bar. She gained a strong base in Italian spirits at Mozza and Terroni, rounded out her knowledge base at The Tar Pit, and currently works as bar manager of Sotto, which is where she discussed her background, influences and approach.
What did you major in at UC Berkeley?
Art, painting, and French.
Do you feel like either one of those helps you in what you do now?
French, no, not so much, but painting and art, totally. It sounds sort of hokey to say, but I always sort of feel like part of the process of – pardon the expression – mixology if you will – is so creative. It gets to the point where you study it for a long time, you educate yourself on your spirits and your ingredients and your amari and your products, the more that you work with it – the longer that I've worked with it – the more I sort of feel like the craft part of mixology, sort of the culinary aspect, does remind me a lot of painting in that I feel like it's using colors.
So cocktails can be art?
Absolutely…If you start with your basic cocktail family, and your basic spirits, it's like your primary colors, you learn how to use those colors, and you start expanding your knowledge to other colors, to secondary colors, to secondary spirits, to cordials, to liqueurs, to amari, and you learn how to work with those. Then you keep expanding. It's like painting. You learn how to use all the products like you would with colors, how to mix them to achieve a result, how to accent and heighten the flavor of the spice in rye with the bitter sweetness of Cynar in a Manhattan variation instead of doing just sweet vermouth and bitters and rye. It's a super creative process in my opinion, very much so like painting, if you will.
Had you worked much with amari before?
I first started working with amari at Mozza, when I was studying wine, and when the Osteria opened, they had this insane amaro collection. I would kind of go over there and after my shift at the Pizzeria and try all the amari. I was absolutely fascinated by the mystery of them, because you don't know what's in them. They're all these guarded family recipes that were originally created for medicinal purposes in terms of either being a digestivo or aperitivo or Fernet, soothing to the stomach. I was just fascinated by them, not knowing what's in them, not having any real definition of ingredients for them. Averna was Mario Batali's favorite thing ever. Every time he was in town, it was just Averna everywhere. Averna became this tradition; every night, everyone does shots of Averna.
Then I went to Terroni, and there were tons of amari there as well. Again, very Italian clientele, so I got to use those a lot. It's not so much cocktails at Terroni as it is just base spirits, and then everyone wants a grappa or amaro. I just fell in love with it because I had been bartending around traditional spirits at The Tar Pit, and really learned how to use them at The Tar Pit. Then just continued to be fascinating. There's just an endless array of them, and each one is just – they're just amazing and mysterious to me – and they accent different things. Sometimes you taste the rhubarb in one of them if you mix it with bourbon, but you don't taste it at all if you put it with gin. It's a very elusive, sexy thing to me.
What's a recent example of an amaro cocktail you made, and what was your approach?
The first amaro inspired cocktail that blew my mind, and I fell in love with, was when I was at The Tar Pit, the Little Italy, which I learned from Chad Solomon. I believe it's one of Audrey's drinks. It's like a Manhattan variation. There were all these Manhattan variations, the Little Italy, Red Hook, the Green Point, for example. The Little Italy, which is Cynar, Carpano Antica sweet vermouth or whatever sweet vermouth you want to use, and rye, just blew my mind. It was a Manhattan, but in the most exquisite, herbaceous way.
I hadn't heard of that one before. I've had the Red Hook and Green Point.
They're all so different. They're all structurally Manhattan variations, and they're all – in terms of having the elements sweet, bitter and spirit – and it's fun because those are the first three off the beaten path amari based cocktails that I learned when I was at The Tar Pit. Chad was a big proponent of those, especially being from New York.
Would you say that you have any mentors?
Absolutely. 100%. I feel super lucky for my experience. It kind of reminds me of when I was acting, when I was younger, and going to all these different schools, and having all these different teachers. Each one had a different method, if you will, or a different school of thought. Stella Adler, Meisner, Lee Strasberg, whatever. Moving around, I kept pulling what worked from each teacher, or each class, and then using what I learned myself to achieve the desired result.
My first exposure to mixology, if you will, was at The Doheny. I was managing with Aidan Demarest. We opened that with Vincenzo Marianella, Eric Alperin and Marcos Tello. I was just in heaven, because it was being in the middle of three powerhouse, super creative mixologists and it was sort of in its birth downtown, so that was three, four years ago. They each worked so differently and had such different inspirations. Eric was Sasha Petraske school, Milk & Honey, very classic cocktails, executed with total perfectionism and complete accuracy, classically.
Then you have Vincenzo, who had this strong London background and was kind of doing all these off the beaten path – like the Smoke of Scotland, one example – this is insane. I had no idea.
Then there's Marcos, and Marcos was so much of a teacher as well because Marcos was hands on, let's do spirits training, let's talk and talk and talk, and it was an incredible experience. It wasn't very busy for the first three hours of the night because it was this private bar, so I would just sit and taste spirits and learn. With Marcos, one thing that jumped out about him is that he's just so passionate about talking about, and educating, so I just fell in love with it…
I went through all the training at The Tar Pit, with Audrey and Chad and Christy, and Marcos, essentially, as well, who was so humble through the process, because it was like, well, despite everything I already know, I'm in the presence of these great, just awe inspiring bartenders who don't even really use the word mixologist. I just sat there every day and listened to Chad and Audrey…
Chad really sort of recognized how passionate I was about it, so he allowed me to participate in all the training, and he sort of took me under his wing…He questioned everything I ever thought I knew, humbled me to the core, literally every time I thought I knew something about a brand or I thought I had arrived, and knew all these cocktails and read all these books, he was like, "Let me ask you, why would you mix it in that proportion?" He's so brilliant, and is just an encyclopedia, and would sit with me and just pontificate and intellectualize it and challenge me…
Chad left to go back to New York, and one thing he said to me, "If there's one person I'd like you to work with who I feel will continue to enhance your knowledge and will be working with good habits, and operating how I would want you to operate, it would be Julian Cox." It's interesting, because Julian got trained by Sammy Ross, and Chad and Sammy Ross came from the same schools, but went separate ways. If you look at their recipes and specs, they're very different…One day Julian called me up and said, "Hey, would you be interested in opening Playa? Then I think you'd be great for Sotto." And I was like, "Fuck, yeah."
I've learned so much from Julian in terms of – he's just meticulous, his cleanliness, his passion, his flavor, everything, I've just learned so much, and re-learned different recipes that I already knew, but with his specs. So it was very cool to see those differences, and also a very humbling experience.
And Audrey was such a fabulous role model too because she's just tough as nails. She was so hard on me at first. She doesn't generally hire women that much, and she was just always with the boys, and she's tough, and I loved it. I just thought this woman is completely just a powerhouse, and fun, and I loved it.
What was your first bar job?
INTERVIEW CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
Tags: BartenderCocktailsKate GrutmanLos AngelesSotto
Joshua Lurie
Joshua Lurie founded FoodGPS in 2005. Read about him here.
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Q: Problem transitioning to root view controller I have a storyboard setup like this:
Home Nav Controller - VC1 - VC2 - VC3 - VC4
Settings Nav Controller - VC1 - VC2 - VC3
To go between Home screens and Settings screens, I have a home icon/button in Settings VC1; and a settings icon/button in Home VC1. But I am not able to get this transition work correctly.
First I tried this code.
@IBAction func homeButtonTapped(button: UIButton) {
    var navController: AppStoryboard.Main.instance.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "HomeNavController") as? UINavigationController

    currentViewController?.present(navController!, animated: true, completion: nil)
}

//... similar code for settingsButtonTapped

It works fine. But this creates multiple view controller instances (checked Debug Memory Graph). Say I go back and forth between Home VC1 and Settings VC1 5 times, I see 5 instances of each view controller.
Then I tried this.
@IBAction func homeButtonTapped(button: UIButton) {
    var navController: AppStoryboard.Main.instance.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "HomeNavController") as? UINavigationController

    window?.rootViewController = navController!
}

//... similar code for settingsButtonTapped

This fixed the problem of multiple instances. But it messes up the custom animation popups I have. The popups work fine if I never ever click the Home or Settings button. But if I click the button once, from that points onwards the popups are not displayed correctly. Say I go from VC1 to VC2, and then open a popup in VC2. The popup appears, but the background is not greyed out like it usually is, and I can see the contents of VC2 clearly, and behind that I can actually see contents of VC1 too.
Any suggestion on how to get this working?
Thanks.

A: You should declare wich of the two is visible first so if we assume that Home is the first one showed to users, pressing on settings you should present it like this
@IBAction func settingsButtonTapped(button: UIButton) {
    let navController = // Instantiate your settings controller
    present(navController!, animated: true, completion: nil)
}

Then if you want to go back to the home view controller you should dismiss the settings view controller like this:
@IBAction func homeButtonTapped(button: UIButton) {
    presentingViewController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
}

Every time you present a view controller this is displayed above the view controller currently displayed and it covers it but the first view controller is not removed and deallocated.

A: You should only present one Navigation Controller and i think it should be the SettingViewController
@IBAction func SettingButtonTapped(button: UIButton) {
    var navController: AppStoryboard.Main.instance.instantiateViewController(withIdentifier: "SettingNavController") as? UINavigationController

    currentViewController?.present(navController!, animated: true, completion: nil)
}

But in homeButtonTapped you should just dismiss the controller
@IBAction func homeButtonTapped(button: UIButton) {
   self.navigationController?.dismiss(animated: true, completion: nil)
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange