Robert Necci

WORTH REPEATING

“For us to go to Italy and to penetrate into Italy is like a most fascinating act of self-discovery… Strange and wonderful chords awake in us, and vibrate again after many hundreds of years of complete forgetfulness.” —D.H. Lawrence

IN THE NEWS

October 20, 2006 – Associated Press - Bush Drops in at Italian-American Dinner
President Bush made a surprise appearance at a National Italian American Foundation dinner show featuring Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. “I’m sorry I’m not going to be around to hear you,” said Bush, who stunned the crowd when he slipped on stage. The president recognized famous faces in the audience, including Justices Samuel Alito Jr. and Antonin Scalia, New York Yankees baseball legend Yogi Berra and Tommy Lasorda, the longtime manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers. Then his remarks turned serious. Bush recognized one prominent Italian American, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was missing from the annual gathering that attracted more than 1,000 people to a Washington hotel. Bush said he would be meeting with Pace and other military leaders on Saturday to discuss the U.S. strategy for addressing ongoing violence in Iraq. “We’re in a titanic struggle between extremists and radicals who cannot stand the way of life of America,” Bush said. “They don’t like the thought that people from different backgrounds are able to live under a nation and work together and achieve greatness. They can't stand the thought of free societies flourishing in their midst.” NIAF promotes the contributions of nearly 25 million Italian Americans, who represent the fifth largest ethnic and voting group in the nation. Bush’s appearance continued a three-decade tradition of every president attending the annual convention.
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2006/10/20/ap3109116.html

October 24, 2006 – AGI (Rome, Italy) – Italians, People of Night-Birds, Awake 4 Hours More Per Day
In the last 20 years the average day has become 4 hours longer: the Italians are a people of night-birds, also thanks to new technologies, internet and night events. The fact is that the active day of the Italians is now made of 17 hours, versus the 13 hours of the past. It was revealed by a research promoted by the designer Giuliano Mazzuoli with the supervision of the psycho-anthropologist Massimo Cicogna on a sample of 800 Italian citizens (half of the them men, the other half women) between 18 and 65 years of age. What are the activities that induce us to postpone the 'goodnight' hour? In first place, in 19 percent of the cases, there is cinema; then the gym (17 percent) which stays open until midnight, at least in the big cities; followed by the shops that remain often open until late in the evening during the week (16 percent); the 'happy hour' in the bar postpone the moment of dinner (12 percent). Then there is the night-clubs (11 percent), chats and internet (9 percent), play station (6 percent), and above all the explosion of satellite TV (10 percent). Old-fashioned TV has been superseded. Now it is possible to choose between tailor-made thematic channels or to choose at any time during the night a pay per view movie. There are some counter-indications to staying awake longer hours: too little rest (29 percent), nervousness at work (23 percent), the dangers connected to the night and possible bad encounters (17 percent), the loss of the habitual familiar pace in life (16 percent). There are also some advantages: for instance, the research reveals that 31 percent of the people who were interviewed are convinced that with this new life-style consumption would increase and the economy would recover (the last White Night in Rome registered a record turnover of 94 million euros with +23 percent occupancy in hotels and only 3 million euros expenses for the organization). There are also more opportunities for cultivating one's hobby (22 percent); there are more opportunities to meet people (17 percent) and it is easier to have a conversation without being stressed by work (14 percent).
http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200610241518-1138-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia

October 24, 2006 – China View (Rome, Italy) - Italy Hosts World Pasta Day
One of Italy’s greatest culinary gifts to the world was to be celebrated on Wednesday in the country’s capital, Italian News Agency ANSA reported. The ninth World Pasta Day in Rome is set to shine the spotlight on a huge variety of mouth-watering dishes produced by the nation’s unrivalled pasta-makers. One third of the 11.5 million tones of pasta gobbled up around the world every year is produced in Italy, where it is only made from durum wheat flour, according to the Union of Italian Pasta-makers (UNIPI). “Italy’s pasta-making traditions give added value to a quality raw material, durum wheat. Our pasta-makers know how difficult it is to obtain a quality product from just one ingredient,” said UNIPI President Mario Rummo. “This is why Italian pasta recipes and know-how, our special blends of wheat, should be promoted.” It aims to promote the culinary and nutritional benefits of pasta and provide a system through which producers can self-regulate the preparation of quality pasta. Pasta is a key part of the Mediterranean diet, which, advocates say, has helped give Italy the longest life-expectancy rates in Europe.
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-10/25/content_5246552.htm

October 25, 2006 – Associated Press (NYC, NY) - Mario Andretti Gets Honor of a Lifetime
Mario Andretti just grins when reminded that police officers all over America - and maybe the world - still invoke his name after they pull over a speeder. “Who do you think you are, Mario Andretti?” Andretti shakes his head and says, “Hey, that even happened to me once. You can imagine the look I got when I said, ‘Yeah, it’s me.’” Andretti didn’t get that ticket. Over the years, the man who holds the unofficial title of best all-around racer ever has been given many honors. None is more prized than the one he received at the Columbus Citizens Foundation in New York. A beaming Andretti, standing before a small crowd of family and friends, received the Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana in honor of his public service, achievements as a race car driver and enduring commitment to his Italian heritage. The Commendatore, as it is known, is the highest honor granted a civilian by the Italian government, similar to being knighted in Great Britain. Only a handful of Italian Americans have been given the honor, and it took a while for the folks who give out these things to get around to Andretti.
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.tsn.ca/auto_racing/news_story/?ID=181883&hubname=auto_racing

October 26, 2006 – Wanted in Rome - Italians Live Longest
Drawing on the mortality figures for 2003, ISTAT has issued a report which will cause the directors of INPS, Italy’s state pension organization, many a sleepless night, with the Italian male enjoying an average life span of 77.2 years and the female 82.8. Within the EU, Swedish males just beat the Italians, while French and Spanish women just beat their Italian counterparts. Overall, however, the Italians beat everyone in Europe. The Italian region whose inhabitants live longest is the Marche, where men average 78.2 years and women 83.9, while at the other end of the table is Campania (men 75.7 and women 81.4).
http://www.wantedinrome.com/news/news.php?id_n=2373

October 27, 2006 – ANSA (Genoa, Italy) - Italians in Nanotech Advance
Italian researchers have shown that tiny particles called nanocrystals can be flooded with more light than thought possible, paving the way for a raft of clinical and commercial uses. “The nanocrystals, when subjected to extreme fluorescence, will enable doctors to carry out tests with an extremely high level of precision and sophistication,” Pier Paolo Pompa and Luigi Martiradonna of the National Nanotechnology Laboratory in Lecce said in an article to be published in the prestigious US journal Nature. “Analyses may even be carried out at the level of a single molecule, with obvious advantages for gene tests,” the authors said. Commercial applications of the breakthrough included increasing the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of liquid-crystal displays (LCDs), microlasers, a range of telecommunications devices and low-consumption lamp bulbs, the researchers said.
http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-10-27_1278094.html

October 28, 2006 – Democrat & Chronicle (Rochester, NY) - Ways of Old Enliven Rich Italian Heritage
Gerry Pellegrino leaned his left elbow on his thigh and flung the red ball with his right hand down the bocce court. The ball curled close to his target: a smaller, brown ball. The dozens of older men who lined the indoor court, many of whom were born in Italy, howled in delight. “Ce l’ha fatta! Ce l’ha fatta! (He did it! He did it!),” they yelled at Pellegrino, 66, of Spencerport. The weekly Italian American Community Center bocce league is one of the many ways Italian Americans in Rochester hold on to their heritage — especially in a country that is more likely to have courts for basketball than for bocce, a game believed to have roots in the Roman Empire. Italian Americans nurture their culture in many other ways, from parents putting their children through Italian-language schools to families partaking in the yearly task of making their own wine and the Sunday ritual of long afternoon meals. The ways of Italian Americans are embedded in the fabric of the Rochester area, especially since they represent the second-largest ethnic group behind the Germans. But Italians rise to the top if you look at the number of Monroe County residents who say their primary ancestry is that of the boot-shaped peninsula in southern Europe, outnumbering Germans 114,535 to 99,907.
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061028/NEWS01/610280335/1002/NEWS

October 31, 2006 – The Anchor (RI) - The Malocchio - Preservation of the Old Culture
This afternoon, as I was eating lunch with my grandmother, she told me that she felt someone had given her the malocchio and had to cast it out of the house. I knew I had heard of this word before from my mother, but it was the first time I heard my grandmother reference to it. The malocchio literally translates to “evil eye.” When somebody talks about giving someone an evil eye, they are probably referring to this Italian belief that when you give someone the malocchio, you pass a silent curse upon their household. An evil eye could cause financial problems, health problems or pests in the house. According to my grandmother, to get rid of the evil eye from the household, one has to drip oil into a dish of water. If the oil spreads all over the place, then somebody has probably given you the malocchio. In order to cast the malocchio from the household, one has to form the sign of the cross over the dish of oil and say a series of prayers. My grandmother then talked to me about something interesting. She told me that the “old-timers” used to do this when she was young, back in Italy. Then, she started talking about how people just don’t teach their kids the old tales and remedies anymore. I’ve learned a variety of interesting sayings from my grandparents. For example, boiling carrots in your “gravy” helps take the acid out, so you don’t get “agida” (acid reflux). Lemons help improve your health. The nicest part of your yard should be the flowers you plant around the Blessed Mother. Eating lentil soup on New Year’s Day is good luck. You should eat a zeppole on St. Joseph’s Day, which is only two days after St. Patrick’s Day. When you shout “a’ va frita,” you are telling the object of your disgust (usually a dropped kitchen utensil) to go fry; when you shout “a’ va Napoli,” that means to go to Naples. There’s a plethora of fascinating things you can learn if you listen to people with a close attachment to a foreign heritage. Sometimes, all you have to do is stop and talk to somebody new, or somebody familiar, and you will learn interesting things you can always keep with you. These interesting traditions will fade away if the young people choose to forget their culture.
http://anchorweb.org/content/view/1141/68/

November 1, 2006 – The Guardian (Rome, Italy) - Art Thieves Turn to Looting Italy’s Churches
Italy’s cultural heritage is facing a new threat from thieves who are looting churches and selling their treasures on the black market, according to the head of the country’s art theft squad. The thieves have turned to plundering churches for religious artifacts since a clampdown on the pillaging of ancient sites. Accords reached with many international museums have seen the return to Italy of illegally exported antiquities and thieves are looking elsewhere to find items to sell to collectors, said General Ugo Zottin, the head of the carabinieri cultural heritage protection unit. “What worries us most at the moment is the constant plundering of churches and religious institutes,” he said. “They’re going after everything - even in deconsecrated churches or other places in which people no longer worship.” Gen Zottin described many of Italy’s churches as walk-in museums where security is minimal. Art works that are hundreds of years old are on open display.Some churches have been considering asking tourists to pay a small fee to go towards protecting their contents while others restrict opening times and have volunteers present to keep an eye on visitors. Other churches, however, are against security measures in a religious setting. The trend was revealed at the opening of a new show in Rome featuring stolen treasures recovered by the carabinieri art theft squad. The exhibition at the regional government’s revamped headquarters in the 18^th century Palazzo Incontro in Rome includes more than 100 artifacts. Works including a painting of St Margaret of Antioch that went missing from the Church of St Peter in Chains in Rome were on display.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,,1936267,00.html

November 1, 2006 – Scenta News - Recovering Pompeii Through Science
Artists in ancient Pompeii painted the town red some 2,000 years ago, with a brilliant crimson pigment that dominated many of the doomed city’s wall paintings. Scientists from France and Italy have now reported, in the journal Analytical Chemistry, why those paintings are undergoing a mysterious darkening. The synchrotron light of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble (France) has provided new insight into this process and what produces it. On 24 August of the year 79 AD, the volcano Vesuvius erupted, burying its neighboring towns in pumice and ash. The Villa Sora, in Torre del Greco, had remained hidden until twenty years ago, when excavation works brought it back to light. In the remains of the house and the distinctive red color of the wall frescoes has turned black in many places since the excavation, in a quick degradation process which was not scientifically well understood. Scientists have been wondering for many years why the red in Pompeii walls, made of cinnabar (HgS), turns black. Already in the 1st century BC, Vitruvius, in his treatise De Architectura, mentions the problem, which at that time was prevented by applying a sort of protective varnish based on “punic wax.”
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.scenta.co.uk/scenta/news.cfm?cit_id=1245536&FAArea1=widgets.content_view_1

November 1, 2006 – Contra Costa Times (Contra Costa, CA) - Soul & History of Polenta & Side Dishes
Polenta is a meal that is meant to be eaten at a communal table. It dates back to the ancient Etruscans, where it was made from ground grains (sorghum and millet) and made much the same way cornmeal polenta is made today, with only water and salt. Pulmentum, as the Romans called it, was made from ground grains (farro, barley, buckwheat) and beans (typically ceci -- garbanzo beans) and fed the conquering armies of imperial Rome. It was eaten as porridge, or formed into a cake allowed to cool, providing an excellent source of nutrition to soldiers on the move or workers in the fields. Corn came to Italy from the new world in the late 15^th century. As grains were ground finer into farina (flour) and found better use in bread and pasta, corn was substituted in polenta in the 16^th century. The early explorers had seen that corn was made into a stiff polenta-like dough (masa) by native So. Americans that served as a staple for the masses. The problem was that it was literally killing people. People who subsisted solely or primarily on corn polenta were contracting pellagra, a decease caused by niacin deficiency. What the early explorers did not realize was that New World masa was first treated with lime, which changed the chemical makeup of corn and made enzymes digestible, and was eaten with a small amount of protein and vegetables. After a few decades and thousands of fatalities later (in the early 1800s), the Italians figured out that they needed to augment their cornmeal polenta diet with small amounts of protein and larger amounts of vegetables, and pellagra all but vanished.
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/local/states/california/15900041.htm

November 2, 2006 – Mining Gazette (Hancock, MI) Author Publishes New Book on Italian Hall Disaster
A cold wind on Calumet’s 7^th St. whips across the lot and stirs a thin layer of newly fallen snow on the ground. Fresh footprints follow the path under the 98-year-old Italian Hall archway. The path continues along to three stone benches, a couple of bare shrubs and a historic sign. But the tracks stop inside the arch, pausing at the site where more than six dozen people were crushed to death almost a hundred years ago. The date was Christmas Eve, 1913. Someone cried fire. Or maybe they didn’t. The doors opened in. Or maybe they opened out. Seventy-three people died. Or maybe it was 79. Or 80. The building was torn down two decades ago, the bodies buried long before that and all the Copper Country is left with is a single arch, transcripts, fading memories and unanswered questions. In his new book “Death’s Door: The Truth Behind Michigan’s Largest Mass Murder,” Steve Lehto wades through the mining history of the area in the early 1900s and examines conflicting news reports and transcripts of the event. During his talk, Lehto detailed the story of how Calumet & Hecla Mining Co. strikers, desiring more pay, safety and shorter days, unionized as the Western Federation of Miners and began a strike in July of 1913.
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.mininggazette.com/stories/articles.asp?articleID=4264

November 2, 2006 – AGI (Rome, Italy) – Ten Million Italians Visit Cemeteries
Millions of Italians have visited cemeteries and graveyards in large cities and smaller towns. On 1 and 2 November, over 10 million people are expected to do so, according to Telefono Blu: 800,000 in Naples, 700,000 in Rome, 600,000 in Milan, 250,000 in Turin, 200,000 in Genoa, 180,000 in Bologna. It is a real and proper business: about 180 million euro (+5 pct compared with last year - 13 euro per family on average) will be spent in flowers. Prices vary from north to south, from 4-6/7 euro per flower (prices are not expected to rise by more than 5 pct this year).
http://www.agi.it/english/news.pl?doc=200611021042-1050-RT1-CRO-0-NF11&page=0&id=agionline-eng.oggitalia

November 2, 2006 – ANSA (Rome, Italy) - Italians in Stem-Cell Advance
Italian researchers have shown that adult stem cells can be used to repair muscles. The team from Milan’s Cattolica University believe their new technique holds out hope of new treatments for degenerative muscle diseases as well as lesions to muscle fibre. Researchers led by Roberta Morosetti and Massimiliano Mirabella took stem cells from adult animals, “trained them,” and injected them into damaged muscles, with encouraging results. The technique, which is illustrated in the latest edition of the prestigious US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is seen as particularly hopeful because it eliminates the risk of rejection.
http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-11-02_1026199.html

November 2, 2006 – News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) - Dinner, Film to Help You Find Inner Italian
You don’t have to be Italian to join the Triangle Sons of Italy. For that matter, you don’t have to be a “son” to join. The fledgling chapter of the 101-year-old national organization welcomes anyone with a passion for Italian culture. “In the media, Italians often are depicted either as owning their own fruit stand or as being part of the mob,” said John La Roca. “This is an outlet that allows us to show we’re in every part of Americana.” “There’s a large and growing population of Italian Americans here, which is likely the result of many people from the north moving down here,” said Cathe Evans, the group’s membership chairperson. “We’re hoping to grow every day.” To that end, the local Sons of Italy is hosting what Evans calls “our biggest event yet.” Anthony Fragola, a UNC-Greensboro professor, will screen a documentary film about the life and death of a Sicilian man who stood up to the Mafia. A discussion will follow, as well as Fragola’s signing his book “Feast of the Dead,” which examines Sicilian rituals honoring All Souls Day.
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/505333.html

November 4, 2006 – The Independent (Rome, Italy) – Italy’s Jewel Cities Face New Peril After Flood
Forty years after Italy’s two great art cities, Venice and Florence, were brought to their knees by catastrophic floods, experts claimed this week that neither city is sufficiently prepared for a repeat of the disaster. And, despite the billions of pounds spent on salvaging masterpieces damaged by flood water, thousands of art works remain to be restored. The two cities mark the grim anniversary today with exhibitions, commemorative volumes, re-unions of helpers and holy masses. But the “Moses” scheme to protect Venice both from disastrous “acquagrande” – “big water” - like it had on 4 November 1966, and the increasingly frequent acqua alta or high tides, by a system of hinged, submerged flood gates, remains half-built and is once again mired in political controversy. The coincidence of weather factors at the beginning of November 1966 were uniquely unlucky. Ferocious downpours dumped a third of the region's annual downfall on the upper reaches of the river Arno in two days. Reservoirs filled to bursting. Across to the east of the peninsula, a fierce southern sirocco wind pushed a wall of water up the Adriatic. The moon was full, bringing spring tides -but as the tide waned, it was met by a flood. In Florence, night watchmen hired by jeweler’s shops on Florence's Ponte Vecchio were the first to raise the alarm - but too late to save most of the stock which went sailing downstream as the waters engulfed the medieval bridge.
For the complete story visit the following link:
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article1953698.ece

COMMUNITY EVENTS CALENDAR

For a listing of many Italian and Italian American programs, updated regularly, visit the John D Calandra Italian American Institute’s Community Events Calendar at the following link:
http://qcpages.qc.cuny.edu/calandra/community/commcal.html

FUGGEDABOUDIT
By Rosario Iaconis
New York Sun - October 27, 2006

When it comes to Italian-Americans, old stereotypes never die. Nor do they fade away. Instead, the calumnies have metastasized into society’s most enduring prejudice.
Whether it’s Tony Soprano, Don Vito Corleone, or Don Lino (the piscine cartoon capo in the kiddy mob comedy “Shark Tale”), this particular devil has the power to assume a most displeasing shape.
And now Italian-American women are being depicted as promiscuous dolts of questionable character on ABC-TV’s “Ugly Betty.” Gina Gambino is the “neighborhood slut” with a history of petty crime who torments the unattractive but noble Betty Suarez.
Despite a patrimony second to none and an unmatched level of achievement in every field of human endeavor — from the arts and sciences to scholarship and entrepreneurship — the scions of Italy remain popular culture’s perennial punching bags.
Even Geico’s cavemen are accorded more respect.
In the season premiere of ABC-TV’s “20/20,” a segment titled “Hollywood Stereotypes” underscored how Hollywood continues to vilify Italian-Americans as the spawn of Tony Soprano. “Most Italian-Americans have nothing to do with organized crime,” says host John Stossel, “but you wouldn’t know that watching TV.” In a telephone conversation with Frank Mastropolo, the producer of this segment, I buttressed Mr. Stossel’s premise with some sobering statistics. Though the vast majority of Italian-Americans are utterly law abiding (according to the FBI, only .00782% have any ties to criminal organizations), a Zogby poll reveals that 74% of Americans believe an Italian surname is indicative of mob connections.
Though Russian, Colombian, Asian, Irish, Albanian, and Israeli gangsters control much of the illicit (ecstasy) drug trade, prostitution rings, and money laundering in America, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act perpetuates the myth that organized crime is strictly the province of the ethnicity that comedian Bill Maher contemptuously calls a bunch of “My-Cousin-Vinny guineas.” The RICO acronym for that act reportedly refers to Rico Bandello, the fictional Italian mobster played by Edward Robinson in the 1931 movie “Little Caesar.”
A case in point is Martin Scorsese’s new flick, “The Departed,” a study in grisly violence and corruption that revolves around the Irish mob. It is based on the depredations of James “Whitey” Bulger, the murderous Boston gangster who is still ranked number one on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list. Nevertheless, Mr. Scorsese could not resist inserting the obligatory anti-Italian slur in Jack Nicholson’s dialogue: “Let’s not cry over spilled guineas.” Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” featured yet another spin on this epithet: “All the guineas are buying it,” said an American soldier, reading the dog tags of those recently killed in action. And Chris Rock’s anthropomorphic hamster in “Dr. Dolittle” delighted in saying, “Why do they call me a guinea pig, anyway? I’m not Italian.”
The net effect of such incessant denigration is to institutionalize anti-Italian intolerance. According to sociologists Richard Alba and Dalia Abdel-Hady, there exists the very real possibility of “ethnic exclusion by U.S. intellectual elites” of Italian-Americans — “a large, identifiable group that has assimilated into the mainstream during the last half century but is still the subject of demeaning stereotypes with wide currency.”
In “An Offer Tehran Can’t Refuse,” a New York Times op-ed by Ted Koppel, the veteran journalist urged Iran’s leaders to view a DVD of “The Godfather.” Additionally, he hoped “we could induce Richard Armitage out of retirement to play the Don Corleone part.” The Hackensack University Medical Center Foundation is raffling off a 2006 Harley-Davidson — festooned with the signatures of “The Sopranos” cast members — to benefit the HUMC Cancer Center. Rabbi Marc Gellman and Monsignor Tom Hartman, aka, the “God Squad,” believe “The Sopranos” has “redeeming artistic and social value,” particularly as a “teaching tool” for kids.
And Rachael Ray recently introduced a “Sopranos Sauce-Off” contest between mob stars Steven Schirripa and Vince Curatola. Grinning from ear to ear, the so-called culinary cutie hoped nobody would get “whacked” in the process. Sadly, she has joined Giada De Laurentiis and Mario Batali in genuflecting before such Italian-American Stepin Fetchits.
A pox on all their kitchens.
Instead of debasing her heritage on national television, Ms. Ray could have celebrated italianità by welcoming the likes of: General Peter Pace, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader (who may become the nation’s first female speaker of the House of Representatives); Dr. Carolyn Porco, space scientist extraordinaire; Samuel Alito, the newest member of the U.S. Supreme Court; physicist Riccardo Giacconi, who won a Nobel Prize in 2002, or even fellow gourmet chef Michael Chiarello.
For these individuals — not popular culture’s cretinous con artists-cum-thespians — are the true scions of Italy.
Mr. Iaconis is vice chairman of the Italic Institute of America.
http://www.nysun.com/article/42372?page_no=1

IN TRIBUTE TO THE ITALIAN-AMERICAN WOMAN
By Professor Silvia Montemurro

The blaring sound of the digital alarm propels my work day into gear as I prepare for the daily agenda with a soothing warm shower, a stylish outfit from my packed wardrobe, and a wholesome breakfast. Racing against the clock, I dash from my suburban home to my trusty sedan and prepare for the first obstacle as a contender in rush hour expressway traffic, sincerely praying for smooth sailing rather than the discombobulated standstill of bumper to bumper traffic. Upon my arrival, I already feel the stress associated with a full day’s work load even though the new day’s intricacies have barely unfolded. However, my energies have to be recouped to meet the interactive demands of college lecturing; the saving grace is that I embrace wholeheartedly the wonderfully gratifying experience of impacting hundreds of students’ lives by attempting to make them think analytically and critically. I am one of the lucky who looks forward to the daily challenges of my career.
Everyone is committed to a lifetime of employment whether it be fulfilling, loathsome, or mediocre at best because we must survive one way or another regardless of the overall routine. From age sixteen through the senior years we labor because we have a very strong work ethic in America – function, do, succeed – and thereby improve the American Dream for each generation. We of Italian decent have been known not only to be passionate about our work ethic but also to infuse it with a standard setting artistry which has been so deeply instilled in each of us since childhood by our parents. Somehow it is the maternal link of the compassionate mother-child bonding that can be doomed as the greatest avenue for our personal motivation, and the immigrant mother of yesteryear serves as a primary example.
Imagine her day: up at the crack of dawn to organize her crammed, noisy tenement household bellowing with harsh street sounds and penetrating odors of horses harnessed to wagons. Outside her window were the rhythmic chants of the yelling street vendors with brimming carts of daily necessities – milk, eggs, fish, poultry, meats, ice. . . She gathered her family from their slumber out of the only bed in the either frigid or stifling flat. Then, most likely, she sponge bathed her children in the kitchen sink because there was probably only one bathroom down the hall or, worse yet, within the whole building. Next, her task was to dress them in whatever clothing and shoes she could muster from hand-me-down scrounging. Her struggle perpetuated with the feeding of hungry mouths three meals on a meager income because her youngsters needed to function adequately and proudly in an American school or more often at a menial job (remember Child Labor Laws were enacted in the 1930’s). This hectic schedule as the nucleus of the family was only the commencing of a work day infused with further strenuous activities.
After straightening order into her home, she proceeded to scrub laundry on a washboard and to hang it on clotheslines; she then departed for a job oriented by her ethnic background – a seamstress in a sweat factory. Employment for the affluent as a cleaning woman or chamber maid was consigned to her Irish or German immigrant comrades. Whatever post she held, she was elated to earn a living regardless of the minimal wages and horrendous working conditions. At the end of her non-union factory work shift, she departed for home many times solely by foot rather than transportation to quickly organize the family dinner hour. Impoverished conditions never prevented her from the primary contender of her daily life – family bonding. The evening relaxation was usually relegated to chatting with neighbors on the tenement’s front steps. This cycle was perpetuated for six work days with the seventh day assigned to Sunday service as the focal point of her week, for God’s protectiveness was key to survival in this new America.
Well, it appears that there are disparities in the Italian-American woman of today and of the by-gone immigrant in terms of demographics, education, technology, and personal advancement. However, the gap is bridged by one dominant force – the focus and the opportunity to be all that she could and can be. Life is sometimes truly uncanny, for I remember my grandmother telling me how she as a child craved the unaffordable luxury of peaches and cream. Today, Italian-American households can easily afford this delicacy, but ironically, we can only ingest peaches with fat-free milk. Look at how far we have come!

WHEN BUILDING ST. PETER’S, GREAT MINDS DID NOT ALWAYS THINK ALIKE
By Cindy Wooden – Catholic News Service – November 1, 2006

VATICAN CITY -While the outcome invokes awe, the construction of St. Peter’s Basilica was not a smooth project that brought together hundreds of artists and artisans thinking only holy thoughts.
Backbiting, criticism and running to the pope to tattle occurred repeatedly during the 120 years it took to build the world’s largest church.
Letters relaying gripes and a stinging satire written in 1517 are on display at the Vatican exhibit marking the 500^th anniversary of the beginning of the basilica’s construction.
The modest exhibit housed in a gallery in St. Peter’s Square opened Oct. 12 and is scheduled to continue through March 8.
Of course, the story of the basilica’s construction is not mainly one of controversy, even though a building project so massive, so expensive and involving Italy’s greatest Renaissance artists was bound to hit some snags.
The exhibit offers visitors a tiny hint of what the site’s fourth-century basilica looked like; a sampling of drawings for projects dropped, changed or realized; a brief look at how other artists paid homage to St. Peter; and a short reflection on the basilica’s importance in the lives of three well-known Catholics.
A well-worn pair of sandals belonging to Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a tattered habit belonging to St. Francis of Assisi and a facsimile of St. Therese of Lisieux’s handwritten autobiography are part of the exhibit’s final section, “Devotion to the Apostle Peter.”
St. Therese, writing from her Carmelite cloister at the age of 22, recalls a pilgrimage she made to Rome with her father and other French pilgrims when she was 14 years old. She recounts her emotion at finding herself in the city where SS. Peter and Paul preached and were martyred.
Mother Teresa’s sandals are sitting next to her 1948 handwritten letter to the Vatican asking to be released from the Sisters of Loreto in order to devote herself to “complete poverty” in serving the sick and the dying. After founding the Missionaries of Charity, she would come to Rome each year to visit the pope and pray at the tomb of St. Peter.
St. Francis’ rough woolen cloak and hood give the exhibit an opportunity to recount one of his many visits to the old Basilica of St. Peter, where he sat and ate with the poor who gathered outside the church each day.
The church St. Francis visited was built by the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century; it was almost completely demolished by Donato Bramante after the cornerstone for the current basilica was laid by Pope Julius II in 1506.
The satire on display in the exhibit is a work called “Simia,” a play on the Italian word for “ape.”
In the satire, Bramante, who died in 1514, stands before St. Peter at the gates of heaven making suggestions for improvements, including adding a grand spiraling staircase leading to the entrance and the complete destruction of the current heaven so he could design something more “modern, elegant, comfortable and functional.”
St. Peter vetoed Bramante’s plans but also told him he would have to wait outside the pearly gates until construction on St. Peter’s Basilica was complete, which would happen a mere 112 years later.
While money and materials were a problem, the delays were increased by a succession of chief architects who, with papal approval, dramatically changed their predecessor’s blueprints.
Then there were the Vatican officials who supposedly were in charge of the Fabbrica di San Pietro, the office overseeing the building but who felt left out of the decision-making process, especially after Pope Paul III named Michelangelo Buonarroti chief architect in 1547.
The exhibit catalogue says Michelangelo’s rapport with the three deputies of the Fabbrica was rocky from the beginning.
Less than three months after Michelangelo took over, two of the deputies wrote to the third, full of alarm that Michelangelo had completely changed the building plans without consulting or informing anyone.
Apparently, things did not improve.
A letter on display from Michelangelo, written five years later, to the Fabbrica deputies complains about their failure to pay one of his assistants and politely, but pointedly, explains that he will take the bill directly to the pope if the money is not forthcoming.
Despite all the trouble that went into its construction, the finished St. Peter’s Basilica is a treasure trove of Renaissance masterpieces in praise of God and the “Prince of the Apostles.”
Inaugurating the exhibit Oct. 11, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, thanked the cardinals, bishops, priests, architects, artisans, plumbers, masons, ushers and cleaners who continue to work to ensure that the basilica is not only structurally sound, but inspires prayer.

Until November 12: Machiavelli a comedy by Richard Vetere. Performance dates are September 13th-November 12. Tuesday-Saturday @ 8 pm; Saturday @ 2 pm; Sunday @ 3 pm. ArcLight Theatre, 152 West 71st Street between Broadway and Columbus Avenue.
November 14, Tuesday, 7 p.m. Celebrating Italian Heritage: Event offered in collaboration with SUNY/Farmingdale. Program will include: Lecture by Professor Thomas Germano, Department of Visual Communication, SUNY/Farmingdale. Topic:DaVinci as an Artist and Scientist; Opera Selections by Vocalist, Carolyn Burke; Readings and Presentation of Book of Selected Poems, Land of Time, by its author, Professor Luigi Fontanella,, Stony Brook University. Location: Roosevelt Hall, Little Theatre at SUNY/Farmingdale.
November 15 and 16, 4 p.m. Film Screenings: The film, The Remains of Nothing (il resto di niente), formerly scheduled but unable to be viewed as part of Fall 2006 New Italian Film Festival, will be presented as a separate film offering on the dates noted above. (In Italian with English subtitles)Location: Center for Italian Studies, Frank Melville Memorial Library, Room E4340. Free and open to the public. Call (631) 632-7444 to reserve a place.
November 30, Thursday, 12:50 pm: Lecture by Professor Anthony Tamburri, Dean of the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, Queens College, CUNY. Topic:Italian/American Briefs: Re-visiting the Short Subject. Location: Stony Brook University Javits Lecture Center, Room 111.
December 3, Sunday, 2:00 pm: Film and Music Program with performers from Italy, Marco Albonetti. Saxophone, and Vicki Schaetzinger, Piano, featuring especially the musical scores of Astor Piazzola. Location: Sachem Public Library, 150 Holbrook Road, Holbrook.
Contact information for: Center for Italian Studies, Frank Melville Memorial Library, Room E4340, Stony Brook University. Phone: 631-632-7444; Fax: 631-632-7421. website: www.italianstudies.org Email: jfusco@italianstudies.org or dseverino@italianstudies.org

ITALIANS PROTEST SNIDE TV ADS
By Gary Fineout – Miami Herald – November 3, 2006

The television ad shows a group of older men with slick hair sitting around a poker table, smoking cigars and toasting one another for persuading voters to allow more gambling, tax increases and the protection of pregnant pigs. The Godfather-style music plays in the background as the men laugh.
The group paying for this ad, which supports passage of Amendment 3 on Tuesday, says it is intended to warn voters that Florida’s Constitution can be changed too easily by special-interest groups. If passed by voters, Amendment 3 would require 60 percent approval -- rather than a simple majority -- before future constitutional amendments can pass.
But the nation’s oldest and largest Italian-American organization, the Order of Sons of Italy, says the ad draws on recurring TV and movie images that portray Italian Americans as mobsters. The group has demanded that the organization that paid for the ad, Protect Our Constitution, which is run by an executive with the Florida Chamber of Commerce, pull the ad and apologize publicly.
Dona De Sanctis, deputy executive director of the Order of Sons of Italy, blasted the Florida group for using a “demeaning stereotype of Italian Americans to pander to the public’s fascination with pop mafia.”
De Sanctis said the ad shows that television and film depictions of Italian Americans is bleeding into other aspects of culture. She added that Protect Our Constitution should publicly apologize to the more than one million Italian Americans in Florida and the more than 16 million in the United States.
Mark Wilson, chairman of Protect Our Constitution, said the ad has already stopped running in major media markets in Florida and will likely be off the air by today.
But Wilson was puzzled by the criticism. He said that the group used volunteers from the Tampa Bay area for the ad.
“'We have had nothing but positive reaction from a lot of folks, including some Italians,”' said Wilson.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/states/florida/counties/broward_county/15916409.htm

500 YEARS OF ITALIAN DANCE:
TREASURES FROM THE CIA FORNAROLI COLLECTION
October 17 – January 20, 2007

This collection pays tribute to the multifaceted history of Italian dance and to one of The New York Public Library’s richest collections. Assembled by Walter Toscanini (1898-1971), the Cia Fomaroli Collection documents the full sweep of Italian dance history from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. It underscores his belief that Italy played a seminal role in the genesis and development of Western theatrical dance and exerted a profound influence on performance, choreographic, and pedagogical traditions throughout Europe and in the United States, on stages both elite and popular.
Fifteenth-century Italy-a patchwork of kingdoms, duchies, principalities, and states-produced the earliest known treatises on the art of the dance. Some were manuscripts, others splendid published volumes recording the dances performed at festive and ceremonial occasions by the aristocracy. (For conservation reasons only a few of the collection’s very oldest treasures are exhibited.) Formal, elegant, and refined, these court dances linked physical control with elevated class status, and laid the foundation for the danza seria or danse noble, the heroic style that gave birth to classical ballet and its ideology. Still other treatises evoked the popular traditions of the commedia dell’arte, with its tumbling and comic antics, brought to heights of virtuosity by the grotteschi or “grotesque” dancers of the eighteenth century. In no other country were these styles so highly developed; in no other country would they commingle so freely and create so compelling a synthesis.
For much of its history, ballet existed in tandem with opera, although in combinations that differed from country to country. In France the tendency over time was to link the two arts under the umbrella of a single work. In Italy, on the other hand, they tended to retain their separate identities, with two self-contained and unrelated ballets-the first “serious,” the other “comic”-being performed between the acts of an unrelated opera. (In the eighteenth century a third ballet sometimes followed the last act of an opera.) Italian audiences loved ballet. They might talk through the act of an opera, but they gave undivided attention to the ballet that followed, and if something had to go to shorten a program, it was always an act of the opera.
The eighteenth century was the golden age of Italian ballet. It flourished in the numerous theaters and opera houses that dotted the pre-unification landscape. (Italy did not become a single country until 1870.) Dancers--often in extended families that emerged in the seventeenth century-traveled allover the peninsula, performing with local troupes in Florence, Milan, Rome, Venice, Turin, Naples, and other cities, usually during the Carnival season that began after Christmas and ended in Lent. The existence of multiple centers gave rise to an exceptionally rich dance culture. La Scala, founded in 1778, may have been the largest and most influential of Italian opera houses, but it did not dominate national taste or lay the foundation for a national repertory until the nineteenth century. Scores of ballets were produced in other Italian cities, and individual theaters developed their own artistic signatures.
Influence from abroad, through foreign visitors as well as Italians who had worked outside the country, added to the brew. Thus, the advent of “pantomime” or narrative ballet in the mid-eighteenth century produced a number of variants, some indigenous (coupling mimetic action and flamboyant virtuosity), others linked to developments in France and Austria, including Gasparo Angiolini’s danza par/ante (“dance that speaks”) and Jean-Georges Noverre’s ballet d’action (“action ballet”). Despite bitter controversy between the two innovators, which came to a head in the mid-1770s, the twenty years that followed were a time of wide-ranging experiment and innovation. Ballets became more complex and scenically elaborate; casts and companies grew. Before 1740 companies of six to eight dancers were the norm. By 1820 major theaters such as La Scala, the San Carlo in Naples, La Fenice in Venice, and the Teatro Argentina in Rome had 80 to 120 dancers on their payroll. The turmoil and uncertainties that followed the French Revolution, coupled with the stultifying artistic policies of the Paris Opera, led to an exodus of French dance talent, above all to La Scala. Here in the early 1800s the “pantomime ballet” reached a zenith in the poetic humanism of Salvatore Vigano’s choreodramas, the historical sweep of Gaetano Gioia’s ballets, and the architectural splendors of Alessandro Sanquirico’s stage sets. The combination of virtuosity and corporeal expressiveness, sweeping narrative and grand spectacle associated with La Scala became defining elements of nineteenth-century Italian ballet.
Although the Romantic ballet of the 1830s and 1840s is regarded as a preeminently French phenomenon, its identity-both in terms of origins and embodiment in performance-is far more complex. Technically and choreographically it owed a debt to Vienna, an international crossroads where many Italian pioneers of ballet Romanticism worked in the 1820s, and where the practice of pointe reached a remarkably high artistic level. Many outstanding ballerinas of the first Romantic generation, including Marie Taglioni, the first Sylphide, Carlotta Grisi, the first Giselle, and Fanny Cerrito were Italian. Italian choreographers, exemplified by Filippo, Salvatore, and Paul Taglioni but also including Pasquale Borri, Antonio Cortesi, Giovanni Casati, Giuseppe Rota, and Domenico Ronzani, worked all over Europe and even in a few cases reached the New World. Although Italian choreographers at home typically preferred historical themes to otherworldly fantasy and folklore, Italian themes appeared in many Romantic ballets produced north of the Alps. And, in Italy, unlike France, male dancers continued to share the honors on stage with women.
The virtuosity that transformed nineteenth-century ballet was deeply indebted to another Italian, Carlo Blasis. Through his writings, his teaching, and as director of the school affiliated with La Scala from 1838 to 1850, Blasis transformed the teaching of ballet technique, systematizing the sequence of exercises and insisting upon the need for a daily class. The result was a dancer of unprecedented strength and virtuosity. By the second half of the nineteenth century, Italian ballerinas, usually trained at La Scala but also privately by Blasis or by teachers who had studied with him, were unrivaled in the bravura of their jumps, turns, and pointe work. At once international stars and Victorian fantasy objects, they reigned over the Paris Opera and St. Petersburg’s Maryinsky Theater, originating the ballerina roles in Sylvia, The Sleeping Beauty, and Swan Lake. They starred in productions such as The Black Crook that toured the United States for decades and headlined ballets in Europe's music halls until World War I. The Metropolitan Opera Ballet and its affiliated school, founded in 1883 and 1909, respectively, remained for decades dominated at the upper echelons by La Scala artists. Meanwhile, at La Scala itself, the monumental works of Luigi Manzotti, exemplified by Excelsior, inaugurated an international vogue for huge ballet spectacles. By the 1920s, Enrico Cecchetti, a La Scala star of the 1880s who had danced in Russia and toured with Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes, had ushered Italian technique into the mainstream of twentieth-century ballet pedagogy in Russia, Western Europe, and the United States.
A bookseller by profession, Walter Toscanini began collecting ballet material in his native Italy in the 1910s, ultimately building a huge collection encompassing some of the earliest Italian writings on dance, including one of the very first Renaissance dance manuals, scores of books, letters, programs, and libretti, and hundreds of prints, photographs, and clippings from Italian-language newspapers. The collection also includes Toscanini’s personal research materials, as well as memorabilia documenting the career of Cia Fomaroli, the La Scala and Metropolitan Opera ballerina whom he married in the late 1930s. In 1938 the couple settled in New York, joining Walter’s father, the celebrated conductor Arturo Toscanini, who had fled fascist Italy and was directing the NBC Symphony Orchestra. In 1955, as a memorial to his recently deceased wife, Walter presented the Cia Fomaroli Collection to what is now the Jerome Robbins Dance Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.
Please visit the exhibition website, www.ny12l.org/italiandance, for supplementary information, digital images, and research sources. For information on additional services of The New York Public Library, please visit the Library’s website at www.ny12l.org.

ARTS GUIDE: EXHIBITS IN ITALY
The following is a city-by-city calendar of some of Italy’s top art exhibitions.

BOLOGNA - Museo Civico Archeologico: Annibale Carracci: this major exhibition spans the artist’s development from his youth in Bologna to his later years in Rome. The show features 160 works by Carracci (1560-1609), including 70 of his best-known paintings; the exhibit wraps up with a specially produced documentary about his famous frescoes in Rome's Palazzo Farnese and Bologna’s Fava, Magnani and Sampieri palazzos; until January 7.
BOLZANO - Archaeological Museum: Chachapoyan Mummies; 12 mummies left behind by South America’s mysterious and now extinct ‘Cloud People’ are on display ahead of scientific studies in Europe. The mummies, found 10 years ago in a cave 5,000 meters up an Andean mountain, are on show at the same museum which has become famous for hosting Oetzi, Europe’s oldest natural mummy. The remains are much more recent than Oetzi because the Chachapoyan people flourished for only 700 years, dying out during the 16^th century; until November 14.
CASTIGLIONCELLO (Livorno) - Castello Pasquini: Boldini, Helleu, Sem - The Protagonists And Myths Of The Belle Epoque.
Paris’s glittering high society at the turn of the last century is the focus of a new exhibit, exploring the work of three artists who came to exemplify the Belle Epoque. The show features some 70 pieces by Giovanni Boldini, an Italian artist who moved to Paris at the age of 30, and his two close friends, Paul Cesar Helleu and Georges Goursat, known as Sem; until November 12.
FERRARA - Palazzo dei Diamanti: André Derain; the exhibition features 90 works covering the entire career of French artist André Derain (1880-1954); until January 7.
FLORENCE - Uffizi Gallery: The Mind of Leonardo, The Universal Genius at Work; the show features numerous paintings and drawings as well as a series of faithful models of the most innovative machines conceived by the Renaissance master; until January 7.
- The Dutch Institute for Art History: Botticelli, Verrocchio and Beyond. Italian Drawings of the 15^th Century from the Royal Collections of Dresden; drawings by Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Filippino Lippi are on show alongside a host of other names from 15^th-century Italy. The 47 designs on show are part of a collection built up by Saxony princes in the 1700s and 1800s; until November 5.
MANTUA - Mantua, Padua and Verona celebrate Andrea Mantegna: shows are being staged in the three northern Italian cities where the Renaissance artist produced most of his work. They have been timed to coincide with the 500^th anniversary of the artist’s death. The shows explore his life and work, documenting the development of his career and the circles he moved in. Each of the parallel events, which run until the start of 2007, will focus on a different aspect of Mantegna’s achievements, with an emphasis on the masterpieces he produced in the respective cities.
- Andrea Mantegna’s House: Leon Battista Alberti; more than 100 designs, manuscripts, models and original architectural decorative components have been brought together for this major show marking the 600^th anniversary of the artist’s birth. The show, which will focus on Alberti’s theories on architecture and his accomplishments as a practitioner of the art, runs until January 14.
MILAN - Ambrosiana: Titian's Supper at Emmaus; one of the most famous paintings by Titian is back in Italy for the first time in nearly four centuries. Supper At Emmaus, usually on display at the Louvre, is on loan to the Ambrosiana as part of a three-painting exhibit focusing on the Resurrection of Christ. The two other works on display are Noli Me Tangere by Bernardini Luini and Marco Basaiti’s Risen Christ; until November 30.
NAPLES - National Archaeological Museum: Egyptomania; the show, which runs until February 28, examines the influence Egypt has had on Western culture since ancient times. It features a number of archaeological finds that have never been shown in public before - both ancient Egyptian originals and subsequent Greek and Roman ‘copies’; until February 28.
PAVIA - Castello Visconteo: Dada; Italy celebrates the 90^th anniversary of the founding of Dadaism with a major retrospective on the artistic and cultural movement; more than 250 works will be featured, mainly by the movement’s founders but also by numerous contemporary avant-garde artists who are indebted to Dadaism; until December 17.
ROME - Scuderie del Quirinale: China, The Birth of an Empire; terracotta warriors and burial garments embroidered with jade and golden threads will be among the star attractions of a major exhibition on Chinese art. The show features 350 artifacts, some of which have never left China and covering more than ten centuries of Chinese imperial history; the terracotta statues are from the ‘army’ of life-sized warriors, horses and carts found near the mausoleum of Qin Shi Huangdi, the first emperor of a united China. The show lasts until January 28.
http://ansa.it/main/notizie/awnplus/english/news/2006-10-23_1233651.html

PROVERBIO ITALIANO

Triste é quel topo che ha un buco solo.
(Sad is that mouse which has only one hole.)
The mouse that has but one hole is soon caught.

UPCOMING EVENTS

• November 9, 2006 — The America Lodge #2245 will sponsor an Opera to the Metropolitan Opera, Lincoln Center. More info to follow. Contact: Jo Falabella, (516) 354-2989.
• November 11, 2006 — The Constantino Brumidi Lodge #2211 will hold an Italian Serenade & Concert by Giada Valenti. Contact: John Vigiano, (631) 242-7479.
• November 12, 2006 — Kris DiLorenzo in “Bombshells, Goombahs, Nonnas & Wiseguys: Will the OTHER Italian Americans Please Stand Up?” This one-woman comedy crusade portrays Italian Americans beyond Godfather movies and the Sopranos. Actress Kris Dean sets the record straight about the good, the bad, and the ugly in REAL Italian family life. Westchester Community College. 3 PM. Classroom Building, Room 200. Tickets $12, $10 for children/students/seniors. Contact: (914) 606-6567.
• November 19, 2006 — The Garibaldi Meucci Museum presents Holiday Mercato. Keeping with Italian tradition, local artisans will be showcasing their original pieces at individual stands. 12 Noon – 5 PM. Free Admission. 420 Tompkins Ave., Staten Island. Contact: (718) 442-1608.
• December 9, 2006 — Gino Di Napoli will be singing the best Neapolitan/Italian American Music. 1 - 4:30 PM. Christmas luncheon/dance, Bavarian Inn, Lake Ronkonkoma. For tickets and info call (631) 242-5808.

2007

• January 26, 2007 — 14^th Annual Winter Charity Ball at the Chateau Briand, Carle Place. More information to follow. Contact: Annette Lankewish, (516) 933-7393 or Madeline Matteucci, (631) 654-2578.
• January 27, 2007 — Winter Plenary Session. More information to follow. Contact: Marianne Principe O’Neil, (516) 785-4623.
• February 25, 2007 — CSJ’s 27^th Annual Dinner Dance at Russo’s on the Bay, Howard Beach. Contact: Josephine Cohen, (631) 345-6586.
• April 27, 2007 — 25^th Anniversary Golden Lion Awards Dinner at the Garden City Hotel. Contact: Marianne Principe O’Neil, (516) 785-4623.
• April 28, 2007 — Spring Plenary Session. More information to follow. Contact: Marianne Principe O’Neil, (516) 785-4623.
• May 20, 2007 — NYS/CSJ – B’nai B’rith Solidarity Breakfast at the Coral House, Baldwin. Contact: Richard Haemmerle, (516) 731-1811 or Marjorie Moschella, (516) 249-2879.
• June 7-10, 2007 — 101^st Annual NYSOSIA State Convention at the Holiday Inn, Albany. More info to follow. Contact: Rae Lanzilotta, (516) 334-0830.

Nota del Redattore:

• The Italian Heritage & Culture Committee Chair will send out a weekly news synopsis of articles and announcements of interest which compliment the Italian and Italian American Experience in America. Our sister and brother members are urged to submit items of interest.

• This report is available online at: http://www.nysosia.org/heritage.asp

Respectfully submitted:
Robert Necci
Coordinator - Italian Education, Culture & Language Committee
Chair – Italian Heritage & Culture Committee
2101 Bellmore Avenue
Bellmore, NY 11710-5605
HeritageandCultureReport@nysosia.org

STATE PRESIDENT CARLO MATTEUCCI
Goals & Objectives: 2005-2007 Administration
ITALIAN CULTURE, HERITAGE and EDUCATION

To promote, preserve, and support our Italian culture, heritage, and language by implementing this element of the Order in our parades, functions, meetings, and conventions.