 |
| Photo by Andrew Giordano |
March 27, 2022
March 26, 2022
New Book: The Serpent Coiled in Naples
• The Serpent Coiled in Naples by Marius Kociejowski
Publisher: Haus Publishing
Publication Date: September 20, 2022
Hardcover: $27.95
Language: English
Pages: 506
Click here to see more books
Listing does not imply endorsement
March 23, 2022
Celebrating the Second Annual Tavola di San Giuseppe in Brooklyn, New York
 |
| La Tavola di San Giuseppe |
Partygoers received blessed medals, fava beans, and rolls from St. Rocco’s Bakery in Glen Cove, New York. The Very Rev’d Dom Daniel Nash, Can. Reg., Pastor at St. Rocco’s Church, kindly blessed the gifts after Mass.
Heartfelt thanks to our friends at the San Rocco Society of Potenza in New York City, the Italian Enclaves Historical Society, the Brooklyn Latin Mass Society, the Italian Mass Project, the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George, the Calandra Institute, and the Emperor Karl League of Prayer for joining us.
Special thanks to Ernesto Rossi at E. Rossi & Co. for generously donating this year’s awesome raffle prizes, festive beads, and St. Joseph prayer cards.
As always, it was a great joy to celebrate our faith and culture together. Evviva San Giuseppe!
 |
| We erected a modest St. Joseph's Table by the front window |
 |
| (Above & below) Pane di San Giuseppe |
 |
| Caponata |
 |
| Arancini |
 |
| Carciofi fritti |
 |
| Insalata di finocchio |
 |
| Parmigiana di melanzane |
 |
| Pasta alla Norma |
 |
| Pasta con sarde with toasted breadcrumbs |
 |
| Insalata di mare |
 |
| Calamari ripieni |
 |
| Involtini di pesce spada |
 |
| Zeppole and sfingi di San Giuseppe from Fortunato Brothers' Bakery |
 |
| Budino di pane |
 |
| Chef Dardanello is unquestionably our "Man of the Year" |
 |
| Jim and Cindy |
 |
| Maria and John |
 |
| Lucia and Stephen |
 |
| Giorgio and Antoinette |
 |
| Alexis and Mike |
 |
| Maria and Rita |
 |
| 'BTB', Isaac, Cezaray, John, and Stephen |
 |
| After dinner we enjoyed celebratory cigars |
Una Vera Esperienza Siciliana
7217 3rd Avenue
Brooklyn, New York 11209
718-833-7833 | vincent@amunibrooklyn.com
Anticipating the Grand Opening of Locanda Borboni: Cucina del Regno delle Due Sicilie in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Locanda Borboni
Cucina del Regno delle Due Sicilie
284 Grand Street
Brooklyn, New York 11211
845-614-3413
www.locandaborboni.com
A Tale of Two Insults
 |
| Banner outside the Bentegodi urging Putin to bomb Naples |
Al Capone has nothing on Lori Lightfoot. ~ Leo Terrell
I like to think I’m thick-skinned and have a good sense of humor. When a co-worker told me a joke poking fun at Italians I laughed. I still laugh when I think of it. To his credit, he laughed when I poked fun back at him. The sky didn’t fall and we didn’t have to scurry to our safe spaces equipped with service dogs and crayons to bawl inconsolably like two blithering idiots. Admittedly, jokes and abusive epithets are two different things, though you wouldn’t know it in today’s hypersensitive socio-political climate.
The recent outrage over a banner displayed outside the Stadio Bentegodi in Verona before the match between Hellas and Napoli is a good case in point. Emblazoned with the Russian and Ukrainian flags, the sign provided the coordinates of the city of Naples so Putin could presumably bomb the Neapolitans. Callous and insensitive to the plight of the Ukrainian people, it was meant to be provocative and it succeeded. Indicative of the ultras’ capacity for gallows humor, it was not (as some have claimed) racist abuse. The Neapolitans will undoubtably have an incisive retort at this fixture next season, but they ultimately got the best revenge by beating the Gialloblu two goals to one.
I also didn’t lose any sleep over the latest controversy concerning Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. It seems Chi-town’s First Lady allegedly asserted in a profanity laced tirade to have a bigger [penis] than the Italians. She made the admonishing boast during a heated zoom conference with lawyers over the planned use of a Christopher Columbus statue at the city’s annual Columbus Day Parade. Ideologically driven, in 2020 Lightfoot had the statue in question removed from Grant Park during the violent BLM riots.
Saying the quiet part out loud, Lightfoot claimed she was trying to protect police officers from getting shot, unintentionally admitting her far-left constituency are the intolerant and violent thugs we know them to be. We reached out to Ms. Lightfoot for a comment, but she is still only granting interviews to journalists of color. Despite the assertion by some, we Southern Italians still don’t fit the bill. Anyway, who are we to question the size of her manhood?
As objectionable and worrisome as Lightfoot’s priapic hubris, inept policies, and racism are, her sacrilege at fallen police officer Ella French’s funeral Mass in 2021 was infinitely more offensive to me than any vitriolic outbursts she could possibly spew at the city’s Italians. Never mind her other problematic issues, as a non-Catholic alone she should not have been allowed to receive Holy Communion. Feigning ignorance by all involved, we’ve sadly come to expect this kind of opprobrium from our contemptible lords and masters in church and state.
 |
| Humorous meme poking fun at modern day Italians. Sadly, this biting criticism of modernity and decadence can be applied to all Western peoples (e.g., vikings and Scandinavians; crusaders and Franks; conquistadors and Spaniards; etc.) |
As far as I’m concerned, the incident in Verona was a crass prank and a nonstory. Again, we are not saying there is no anti-Neapolitan bigotry, it's just that we have seen far worse from the Veronese, and others. In heated confrontations such as sporting events name-calling and taunting are par for the course, and I expect nothing less from our regrettable neighbors to the North. As bad as the lowbrow and inflammatory antics in the terraces can sometimes get, I am much more concerned with corruption and real territorial discrimination by the Italian State.
On the other hand, the Lightfoot scandals are significantly more troubling because she is in a position of power and authority. An unhinged ideologue with racist inclinations and oversized genitalia, she clearly cannot be trusted to be fair and impartial. One would think her gross mismanagement of that crime-ridden city would be enough to remove her from office, but hey democracy. In a sane world she would never have been elected in the first place. It’s anything but sane and we live in a humorless, easily manipulable, and disordered society.
~ Giovanni di Napoli, March 21st, The Feasts of Bl. Maria Candida of the Eucharist and San Benedetto da Nursia
March 22, 2022
Lucky Thirteen
“Peoples without traditions become savages.” ~ Juan Donoso Cortés [1]
Praying Time by Fortunino Matania
Thirteen years ago today we launched our blog to augment and reflect our cultural and religious activities and, to the best of our abilities, fill a glaring void left by the various cultural and educational institutions claiming to serve our community. Generally well-received, in that time we carved a respectable online niche for ourselves, notwithstanding the partisan censorship, biased algorithms, and deplatforming by the gatekeepers of information. Since little, if anything, has improved with the institutions, we still feel impelled to continue our work, even though we find the internet to be profoundly boorish and distasteful.
Despite the many pitfalls that come with the web, we see social media as a necessary evil in the modern world. Unquestionably a useful tool for information and communication, the reality is social networking can never really replace human bonding. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Like television before it, the internet has contributed mightily to society’s deep cultural malaise, incivility, social isolation and alienation.
This is why, in addition to the religious and historical material we provide, a big part of what we do is promote social gatherings to help strengthen existing local communities and, God willing, forge new ones. Healthy group interactions and friendly associations foster trust, cooperation, and learning. In stark opposition to globalization and its progressive onslaught against ethnic and religious groups, we unapologetically celebrate our faith, culture, and time-honored traditions.
Making the Most of a Bad Situation
 |
| Blessed Karl and Servant of God Zita, orate pro nobis |
“In the face of ever mounting insanity in Church and State, I can only ceaselessly recommend prayer to Karl and Zita: they endured it all and worse.” ~ Charles A. Coulombe [2]
On a personal note, the lockdowns (and temporary unemployment) over the past two years have given me a chance to spend more quality time with loved ones, hone my cooking skills, read, study, and most importantly expand my interior life.
Prayer is of vital importance for our spiritual growth and relationship with God. It is our principle weapon against the enemy and our best defense from the incessant devilry that looks to corrupt the hearts of men. Quick-tempered by nature, spiritual combat, frequenting the holy Sacraments, carrying out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and devotion to the saints have all helped bring me closer to God, and stay measured and sane in an increasingly insane world.
“The ink that dyes my pen is not soaked in the blue of literary chimeras, but is red like the blood of the soldiers of the "tercios" of the kings of Naples, in which my Neapolitan ancestors, sons of Italian land, established the truth absorbing us with the perfect grace of the whirling flash of their imperial swords.” ~ Francisco de Tejada [3]
During this period, I knocked off more than a few books on my shamefully long to-read list, the most recent being the late fourteenth century chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso respectively. Not limited to epic poems and sagas, my studies have also included the works of relatively obscure, sometimes unfashionable, historians and socio-political thinkers.
Do Not Comply
 |
| Flair at an anti-vaccine mandate protest in New York City |
Lex iniusta non est lex. [4]
Doing our best to circumvent the unjust mandates, restrictions, and regulations, we continue to live our lives as we see fit, regardless of all the attempts by our corrupt power-hungry elites to prevent us from doing so. Needless to say, this course of action was only made possible with the cooperation of other rational souls who didn’t fall victim to all the lies, kept a cool head, and refused to comply with illegitimate authority.
For the record, these brave individuals and their businesses have earned our undying loyalty and will receive our support and preferential patronage long after all this nonsense is over and we've moved on to the next artificial emergency.
“Outside the limit of our sight, feeding off us, perched on top of us, from birth to death, are our owners! Our owners! They have us. They control us! They are our masters! Wake up! They're all about you! All around you!” ~ They Live [5]
In addition to the unhinged cultural and socio-political subversion being imposed by our iron-fisted overlords, the swine engage in unmitigated fear-mongering in order to wage war against the people they rule. Driven by ideology or naked lust for power and wealth, they perpetually manufacture pseudo-crises to undermine and manipulate the masses. Striving for an unattainable utopia based on arrant delusions and self-assured hubris, they gleefully destroy what is left of our moribund civilization and its traditional guiding principals: faith, family, and culture.
A domineering political class in lockstep with a duplicitous media, academia, and big tech, not to mention a seemingly endless rout of useful idiots and opportunists, are all in thrall to the global revolutionary oligarchs. Once tacit, the current regime has made censorship, discrimination, indoctrination, financial ruin, physical intimidation and other strong-arm tactics part of its official policies, especially when dealing with dissidents and thought criminals.
Not alone in seeing them for who they really are, today’s hushed gatherings in church halls and underground salons are eerily reminiscent of the closed Captive Nations meetings my friends and I attended back in the ’80s in the backrooms of cafés and beerhalls. Necessary precautions at the time to thwart potential revenge attacks from Soviet spooks, I see too many similarities in today’s morally bankrupt Democratic controlled Amerika.
Naturally, the nest we were loosely affiliated with disbanded soon after the fall of Ceausescu in 1989, when many Romanian expats gallantly returned to their homeland to fight for freedom. At the time I remember feeling a bit envious of them, but who knows, the way things are looking now, I still may get my chance to stand up against the red menace.
 |
| San Martino di Tours, ora pro nobis |
"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien [6]
Surrounded by great evils, we knights errant don’t have to search far for chivalrous adventures or quests. We are blessed in these trying times with golden opportunities to be heroic. Stop waiting for “the people to rise up,” before taking action. This deluded, and quite frankly, Marxist fantasy is a dead end. The defense of the weak and helpless has always fallen on the shoulders of a few brave and virtuous heroes. Yes, we must be prudent and effective, but don’t let the gutless and obsequious cowards deter us from our duties.
Audentis fortuna iuvat. [7]
Girded for battle, our energies should be used to invigorate the natural and supernatural orders in our families and communities. Strive to lead noble and honorable lives and spurn modernity in all its odious manifestations: materialism, secularism, and social atomization, to name but a few. Those in a position to restore any vestige of beauty or sanity to society need to do so, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant the enterprise, and the rest of us need to support and defend them however possible. If we are to topple the whores and traitors firmly entrenched in power, we will have to make great sacrifices, embrace the inevitable hardships, and gaily emulate our heroes and saints to better serve God’s greater glory. Viva Cristo Re!
~ Giovanni di Napoli
Notes:
[1] Translated from La monarchia tradizionale, Francisco Elías de Tejada, Controcorrente Edizioni, 2001, p. 102-103. The original reads: “i popoli senza tradizioni diventano selvaggi.”
[2] Charles A. Coulombe, Twitter, 3 February 2022.
[3] Translated from La monarchia tradizionale, Francisco Elías de Tejada, Controcorrente Edizioni, 2001, p. 16. The original reads: “L’inchiostro che tinge la mia penna non è intriso nell’azzurro delle chimere letterarie, ma è rosso come il sangue dei soldati dei “tercios” dei re di Napoli, in cui i miei antenati napoletani, figli di terra italiana, stabilirono la verità che ci assorbe colla grazia perfetta del roteante balenio delle loro spade imperiali.”
[4] “An unjust law is not law.” Attributed to St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo.
[5] Quoted from They Live, a 1998 science fiction film directed by John Carpenter.
[6] Quoted from The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of The Lord of the Rings series by J.R.R. Tolkien.
[7] “Fortune favors the bold.” Virgil, Aeneid.
March 20, 2022
Photo of the Week: Madonna Addolorata and Cross Inside the Chiesa di Santo Stefano in Molfetta
 |
| Photo by Andrew Giordano |
March 16, 2022
Ponderable Quotes From ‘The Leopard’ by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Duke of
Palma & Prince of Lampedusa (1896-1957)
“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” (p.31)
“The tricolour! Tricolour indeed! They fill their mouths with these words, the scamps. What does that ugly geometric sign, that aping of the French mean, compared to our white banner with its golden lily in the middle? What hope can those clashing colours bring ‘em?” (p.31)
“The wealth of centuries had been transmuted into ornament, luxury, pleasure; no more; the abolition of feudal rights had swept away duties as well as privileges; wealth, like an old wine, had let the dregs of greed, even of care, and prudence fall to the bottom of the barrel, leaving only verve and colour. (p.33)
“Love. Of course, love. Flames for a year, ashes for thirty.” (p.68)
“All this shouldn't last; but it will, always; the human ‘always’ of course, a century, two centuries… and after that it will be different, but worse. We were the Leopards and Lions; those who’ll take our place will be little jackals, hyenas; and the whole lot of us, Leopards, jackals and sheep, we’ll all go on thinking ourselves the salt of the earth.” (p.173)
“Rage is gentlemanly; complaint is not.” (p. 184)
“As always the thought of his own death calmed him as much as that of others disturbed him: was it perhaps because, when all was said and done, his own death would in the first place mean that of the whole world?” (p. 210)
* Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, The Leopard (Il gattopardo), translated from the Italian by Archibald Colquhoun, Collins and Harvill Press, 1960
March 13, 2022
March 11, 2022
Praying We Avoid WWIII
Scene depicting the daily Two Minutes Hate directed against
the current enemies of the state from Michael Radford's 1984 film
adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
“My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.” ~ David Sipress [1]
Like every sane person, I’m gravely concerned with the Russian invasion of Ukraine and possible escalation of the war. The United States' response and media coverage of this terrible tragedy thus far has been equally disquieting. I’m no pacifist, but I see no good coming from America’s potential military entanglement in this fratricidal conflict. Unable to manage the withdrawal from Afghanistan, how can we trust this government to manage protracted hostilities (covert or otherwise) against a rival nuclear power?
Plain and simple, Biden’s effete and ineffectual Administration failed to prevent Putin’s war. Biden’s subsequent saber-rattling and reckless escalatory measures smacks of desperation as the home front seethes with discontent at his incompetence and gross mismanagement of these United States. If I didn’t know any better, I would think the warmongers on both sides of the aisle are purposely trying to draw us (and the rest of Europe) into another bloody conflagration.
Freedom Fries Redux [2]
“In a related story, in France, American cheese is now referred to as ‘idiot cheese.’” ~ Tina Fey [3]Reminiscent of the imbecilic anti-French response theatre that took place during Bush’s so-called “War on Terror” and more recent discrimination against the unvaccinated, the lemmings predictably started demonizing all things Russian. Tiptoeing around China’s connivance with Covid while strongly condemning any anti-Sino backlash, it seems some forms of bigotry are okay after all. Considering Hollywood’s lack of imagination and creativity these days, I half-jokingly expect the “Rocky” and “Rambo” franchises to make a comeback and cash-in on the war hysteria. If we can’t defeat the evil Russkies diplomatically, at least we’ll beat them on the big screen and newsrooms.
Call me unpatriotic, but I’m not going and burn my copies of Dostoevsky or Solzhenitsyn; I’m not deleting Tchaikovsky or Mussorgsky from my playlists; and I’m definitely not dumping my vodka or caviare (not that I can afford it any more). If a serious and competent statesman with a sensible foreign policy rose to the fore, he would get my support, until then my contribution to the “war effort” will be limited to voicing my displeasure with our government and prayers for peace in Ukraine.
~ By Giovanni di Napoli
Notes:
[1] Caption from a widely published cartoon by David Sipress dating from the Clinton Administration.
[2] Back in 2003 jingoistic restauranteurs absurdly renamed french fries “freedom fries” in retribution for France’s opposition to the war in Iraq.
[3] Tina Fey, Weekend Update, Saturday Night Live, 15 March 2003.
Meridiunalata XXVIII: Era Marzo by Cav. Charles Sant'Elia
Era Marzo
Era marzo e 'o tiempo passava
Pisante arret' 'e lastre,
Nchiuvato mmiez'a l'ore i' rummanevo,
E tu me sapive vulè troppo bene.
Turnavo a casa e me sciacquavo
'A faccia, l'acqua era assaje fredda,
Me scetava comme 'o viento 'e fora,
E recitavo n'ata vota 'o nomme tujo.
Quanta primmavere se ne sò ghiute
E i' te canto 'e stesse canzone,
Ma mo nun 'e siente overamente
Ca nun nce staje chiù,
Nun è sulo ca faje nfenta 'e nun senti,
Tu int' 'a sti braccia nun può turnà.
È pisante 'o tiempo arret' 'e lastre.
It was March
It was March and time was passing
Heavily behind the window panes,
Fixed firmly between the hours I remained,
And you knew how to love me too much.
I was returning home and I rinsed
My face, the water was so cold,
It woke me like the wind outside,
I was reciting your name again.
How many springs have faded away
And I sing you the same songs,
But now you truly don't hear them
For you are no longer here,
It is not just that you pretend not to hear,
You in these arms can not return.
Time is heavy behind the window panes.
* Self-published in 2010, Meridiunalata/Southernade is a treasury of poems gleaned from Cav. Sant'Elia's previous collections (Nchiuso dint''o presente, 'A cuntrora, and 'O pino e l'éllera), which were circulated among friends in New York City and Naples. Special thanks to Cav. Sant'Elia for allowing us to reprint his poetry and translations.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
