Writers! Regardless of Where You Stand in the Publishing Game, Enhance Your Social Media Presence.
A Spiegelman fan,I purchased this copy at a used bookstore.
Brilliant best selling graphic artist and Pulitzer prizewinner Art Spiegelman of Maus I and Maus II fame struggled to get his work out there in the early 1970s. It was a process and there was even rejection of his incredible, iconic work. (Words cannot describe the graphic artistry and meaning of what he has done with Maus I and Maus II. You just have to check it out for yourself or not.) When he was attempting to get his book Breakdowns published (before he created Maus I) it didn’t go swimmingly. Decades later, after his many awards, global recognition and other publications, his editor at Pantheon was all for re-issuing Breakdowns and this time, Spiegelman was surprised and hesitant. But things had changed by 2007. You mean publishing and the cultu1re had galactically shifted from the days that Art Spiegelman was first establishing his career? Duh!
In those days, for Spiegelman, getting published was not unimportant. To many today, it is golden. It is the dream of established writers who may have faced writer’s block after years of success. It is the dream of those who have fallen off the charts and out of the hearts of former readers. It is the dream of the published whose first, second and third books have middling sales that tapered to .001% so that literary agents and editors won’t go near them. (Low percentages? Nil profit margins? Are you insane? How can the media CEOs sustain tremendous salaries and bonuses with such schlocky sales numbers?) It is the dream of the working writer who has written and published one book and is working on another in the hope of changing publishers/ agents and getting a better deal, though the first book sales were abysmal. The variables of situation are endless, unless of course, one is a hot name with an extensive platform, i.e. Bill O’Reilly (in which case the greatness of the work is immaterial, as long as there is name recognition and a ready mega platform).
The irony has been that for the last century, concepts and particular literati who have been favored by elites, the wealthy or politicos have been highly publicized. This creates an inherent censorship. The gatekeepers, the literary agents, the large presses have kept it that way to fuel ideas that elitists wanted the public to believe and be bound in by. So traditional media has worked in concert with the very wealthy. (Perhaps it is why Spiegelman was rejected for publication until he found an intelligent, prescient SMALL publisher who took a chance on him.) In many instances the middle class and general public’s reading tastes have been tailored to what elites have deemed, “great,” though their standards are merely opinions and predominately skewed to their agendas. Their concepts of great craft, writing and artistry often beggar the imagination.
Salman Rushdie tweets with his fans on Twitter and actually did battle last year with Facebook, winning with his great humor, irony and wit. Social media is one of the best ways to connect and keep in touch with your readers.
Needless to say, European publishers, more intellectual, knowledgeable in breadth and scope, courageous and less censoring, have allowed titles in that NEVER WOULD HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED IN THE US. And yet, we think we are a free and open democracy? (We are told that by traditional media hirelings though many medical books and controversial political content find publishing friends overseas or in Canada.) Well…traditional publishing has relied on TV to gather its stable of often un-meritorious but profitable properties. Writers, unfortunately, have been at the mercy of these “experts” in the field who often consider the art and craft of a work last, and consider the saleability first.
Apple was one of the companies sued by the DOJ for price collusion.
This former “state of the art” for the industrial media complex has been upended by Google. It has been overturned by Amazon, undercut by Facebook and thwarted by Twitter and other social media platforms and growing spheres like Storylane. How? Subtly and not so surreptitiously. When traditional media realized it had lost its edge and destroyed the bee hives producing their honey, their fear and greed and inability to ADAPT or wrap their brains around what was happening spurred them into old paradigm interventions that worked before: lobbying and price collusion.
Mistake. They’ve been held accountable and have been sued by the DOJ and a few have had to settle while others collude with the government for the best deal which may not be forthcoming since their profitability is much lower than Google’s and Amazon’s. You see traditional media became so comfy with their century long oligolopoly that they were caught up short without a chamber pot when Amazon undersold them. That’s all they could come up with to compete? While they were riding out the waves of the past, their navigation misdirected by the old paradigm, the innovators, like a huge roller, a mammoth tidal wave, a mega tsunami, capsized their hopes and dreams of profits. Now, they are paddling slowly while growing social media networks and companies like Google continue their innovations, investing money in R & D to create better product and to entice readers, writers and developers to improve.
Bottom line? Google is swamping the media that was! I will not refer to the traditional publishers by name. Unless they begin to accept mid-list and beginning writers, offering them credible crumbs, the writing community will eschew them completely in favor of working with e-publishers, small publishers, Createspace, et. al, and those in the online publishing paradigm. I give these censoring publishers who will have to spend more and more on costly promotions and PR campaigns less than 20 years. Unless they begin to innovate to create the “next best thing,” or unless they merge with Amazon or Google (Why would those companies want to merge with inefficient, ineffective, archaic and intractable platforms?) they will have disappeared, become a ghost memory, a ridiculous faux nightmares of elitism from which we have awakened. What was the name of that book seller that went bankrupt because its innovations were too little too late? Innovate or perish. Big name publishers are slowly writhing in the mud as their hand maidens, the agents, the PR personnel, the editors struggle, sucked downward with them, sinking further into the shifting, miry clay soon to be swallowed up in a sinkhole of their own making.
The diminishing present trend is that,unless you are President Obama or a politico or a faux or worthy celebrity, a salable commodity, a publishing company will not market you. You have to market yourself. Even if you are President Obama, you have to market yourself, appearing on old media, TV, etc. Wasn’t it Michelle Obama I saw ripping open the envelope for the Best Picture Oscar last night, via a feed from the White House? Folks, the President is savvy enough to have his social media hordes and teams busy marketing him online. It’s why the Republicans have been doing unmentionables in the dark. They can’t get into the light of Twitter/ Facebook, et. al. and sound rational.
Kristen Lamb, author, blogger and a member of the online writing community who inspires and nudges writers to get on with the craft and be persistent in achieving their goals.
So, writers, if it’s good enough for the Prez, it should be good enough for you. Kristen Lamb, social media maven and author, in a recent blog post discussed the hard work it takes to position yourself on social media platforms to establish a working, interactive community from which you can promote and sell your books. If you think it will take too much time, then hire a team to help you. Using hashtags, and signings and promotions and launches, you will be able to promote yourself on social media and continue to do so, long after a traditional publishing company has left you to ROT.
Nina Amir is a motivational coach who helps writers and non writers achieve their goals and live inspired lives.
How do you do this if you have been out of the loop for some time and find Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube and Reddit loathsome? GET OVER YOURSELF! SNAP OUT OF IT! Swallow, take a deep breath and sign on for social media classes online. If you are a woman writer, then check into WOW Women on Writing. If you prefer live and hands on, there are many Continuing Ed. courses at various universities or colleges near you. Hopefully, you are not in this dire condition.
To help yourself and your writing career regardless of where you are…pick up the bullet at your current situation:
- Read about social media and take classes to learn how to post and interact on the most powerful sites (Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Tumblr, Instagram, Pinterest, etc.)
- Start a few blogs and blog about subjects related to your writing, making sure to increase your readership and followership daily. Read other blogs faithfully and post comments on them, inviting them to guest on your blog.
- Be willing to spend at least 3-4 hours a day on social media and the same on your writing. Alternate this according to a schedule you make for yourself if you can’t spend the time.
- Once you’ve created a viable interacting platform and joined writers’ groups including those on Linked In and elsewhere, create your book pages and invite your followers.
- Somewhere in between all of this, you are writing your book, editing it or sending it out to be edited or working with an editor or an agent you get along with; one who is a friend and one you can trust.
- If you have done all of the above years ago and are in a slump, change it up and do something different. Shut down all online interaction for a day or a number of hours. Then review what seems to be working and what isn’t and jettison both for another day or period of hours. Go back and reassess and research. The change up will spur you on and revitalize you. If it doesn’t, seek a coach or someone to help you get out of the funk or open this up to your online writing community. Share, ask for comments and advice. Eventually the watershed moment will come. (Skip below as needed and move to the last paragraph.)
This is the beginning of a beautiful relationship with your online writing community and your team of writing friends who are intelligent, creative wordsmiths. You will keep many; you will lose many, but the journey is amazing, and eventually what was the hard work, when you look back after a year of doing this, will not appear to be so arduous after all.
The following 2 sources might be helpful for those who are beginning, or those who have taken a hiatus and need to get back into it especially if you feel overwhelmed. I apologize for not including many more, but these should whet your appetite and they are easy.
Online writing source with classes: WOW Women on Writing. (Men can take these classes as well. They are not maternalistic.) I took classes with WOW and found them to be what I needed. I also had to put in the time to learn by trial and error. I have writing friends who refuse to do this and their many publications languish, but they are trying to use other venues to get going. (traditional media venues)
Helpful Books: How to Blog a Book by Nina Amir
We are Not Alone: The Writer’s Guide to Social Media by Kristen Lamb
Your successful publishing career can take years, but so can publishing via the traditional way, which may never come to pass as the industry is reeling in a downward spiral toward doom. I have a friend who self-published because he said he was getting old and he wanted to see his books in print. That was his dream. What is yours? Are you using your social media presence to achieve it?
EATALY CELEBRATES SAGRANTINO MONTH IN NYC 2nd Annual Event
My cousin who is a doctor in Perugia, Umbria is so fortunate. She has the opportunity to enjoy the vino locale whenever she wants. It has been a few years since I have been to visit and I miss everything I enjoyed about the region, the sounds, sights, tastes, smells, all of which combined to take my breath away and create an indelible experience of freshness and beauty.
Spoleto, home of the arts and music festival in east central Umbria.
In the region you will find Montefalco and its indigenous wine, the Sagrantino. Umbria, belovedly referred to as “The Green Heart of Italy,” was celebrated in NYC in the fall. It was then I happily took advantage of imbibing Umbrian wines and feasting on the delicious cuisine native to the region. I even purchased some Umbrian products at venues (i.e. Eataly, De Paolo’s Fine Foods) around the city as New York highlighted the month long events that Mayor Bloomberg proclaimed for the celebration of “I Love Umbria Month.”
Growing Popularity of Montefalco’s Signature Wine in the U.S.
By now familiar with the region and its cuisine, I was glad to learn that The Montefalco Consortium announced a 2nd annual ‘Sagrantino Month’ to be held at New York City’s Eataly in March. I have come to love Sagrantino wines, becoming acquainted with various Montefalco wineries which grow the finicky and spare grape vines. Producing these wines is a feat which requires concentrated effort, knowledge and determination to tease out a wonderful harvest that through experience and honed skill rewards us with the sumptuous, full bodied and rich tasting Montefalco Sagrantino.
Montefalco Wine Region
This year’s Sagrantino Month celebration is part of a year-long, national Sagrantino campaign that includes events and promotions capitalizing on the momentum created by an increased American interest for the signature wine of Montefalco. Amilcare Pambuffetti, president of the Montefalco Consortium explains this thrust into the U.S. market. “Last year we introduced many Americans, both trade and consumer, to Sagrantino and the response was enthusiastic. This year we plan to build on the foundation we’ve established.”
Sagrantino grapes
Sagrantino Month Celebration at Eataly
The Sagrantino Month promotion at Eataly will include a trade seminar, consumer classes, tastings in the Eataly Wine Store, wine by the glass at all of Eataly’s restaurants and tastings in Eataly’s ‘La Piazza.’ The year-long promotion will continue with virtual tastings with US press, trade tastings, dedicated meetings for unrepresented producers, a consumer awareness and education program. From its quiet beginnings as a regional Umbrian wine, Sagrantino has become a favorite in Italy and producers are assured that as the American consumer becomes knowledgeable about Sagrantino it will become equally popular in the U.S.
There consumer classes at Eataly will be held on March 12 and March 28. Starting from March 1 to March 30, there will be free wine tastings at Eataly Vino every Friday, from 6 to 8pm, each time with a different producer.
Every Saturday a wine by the glass will be poured at the Le Eccellenze Corner inside the store, for just $10. Select wines of Montefalco will be available by the glass at each Eataly restaurant throughout the month and on sale at the wine store.
There are five participating wineries in the Sagrantino Month promotion: Antonelli San Marco, Arnaldo Caprai, Perticaia, Scacciadiavoli and Tenuta Castelbuono. Five more wineries will be involved in the other activities throughout the year, these are Colle Ciocco, Colle del Saraceno, Le Cimate, Romanelli and Tenuta Bellafonte.
If you are planning to indulge your love of Sagrantino or would like to have an introductory taste at Eataly and would like more information on the month long activities, visit www.consorziomontefalco.it.
Looking into the valley of wine producers below. (Spello)
About the Wines of Montefalco
Sagrantino grapes are indigenous to the region of Montefalco, Umbria and have a long history there. dating back to the 1700s, where the growing of grapes and wine making was suited to Umbria, the “green heart of Italy” and Montefalco, where documents of the time noted that “fine and delicate wines were produced there in ‘beautiful and good’ vineyards.” So much was this the case that municipal sanctions were strengthened to maintain and sustain the culture of thriving, glorious vineyards and sumptuous wines. If you hampered a winery in its noble and sacred endeavors, you were in big trouble. In 1622 Cardinal Boncompagni, the Pontifical delegate in Perugia, threatened “capital punishment for anyone found cutting down grape vines.” Cutting down a plant was worthy of death? Such was the symbolism, of grape vines and the vitality of wine to the culture and the church.
Franciscan monks nurtured the Sagrantino grapes in vineyards like St. Leonard’s in Montefalco to produce their sacramental wines. (Painting: Blessing the birds and the beasts.)
Sagrantino vines were cultivated in monasteries like St. Leonard and St. Claire where monks that made the wine used it for sacramental purposes and local farmers enjoyed the wine during festivals and religious holidays, including Christmas and Easter. The wine had a hearty following during the 20th century until after WWII when the vines and wine fell off and nearly disappeared in the 1960s. Thanks to the dedication of local producers with a romantic imagination and assiduous determination to bring back the Sagrantino grape and its luscious, full bodied wines, the Sagrantino DOC was granted in 1979 and the DOCG in 1992. Producers like Marco Caprai also elicited the help of the University of Milano to ensure that the Sagrantino vines burgeoned to yielding productive harvests. (The grapes are not prodigious and abundant in output and must be carefully nurtured.) As a result Sagrantino wines have become a favorite of Italy and are becoming globally known.
Sagrantino Montefalco DOCG
Wonderful points about Sagrantino is that it is suitable for long aging. It pairs well with many cuisines and is delicious with roasted meats like beef short ribs, pork loins, game and other meats that are juicy with bit of tasty fat. Other friends have told me that Sagrantino is delicious with spicy foods and of course, with cheeses like Granna Padano, Petite Basque, Robiola, or other sharp raw sheep’s or cow’s milk cheeses. I have found that Montefalco wines offer excellent quality without destroying one’s weekly wine budget. Two examples of high quality but affordable wines are the versatile Montefalco Rosso, a blend of principally Sangiovese, and Sagrantino, and the refreshing white blend known as Montefalco Bianco, made of the indigenous Grechetto, combined with Trebbiano and other grapes. The Montefalco Bianco pairs beautifully with fish dishes or light pasta dishes which sparingly use milk or cream.
Participating Wineries of Montefalco Celebrating at Eataly
IL Buco Alimentari & Vineria. A Great Place to Host the “European Winery of the Year 2012.”
I had been to other restaurants on Great Jones Street in that well trafficked section of NoHo, namely Five Points, a restaurant my friend invested in. IL Buco Alimentari & Vineria was just up the block. I had read Pete Wells’ New York Times three star review of Il Buco. Pretty impressive as reviews go, one star away from the four stars which only six other NYC restaurants achieved over the years.
Wells had raved about the bread, “Remarkable stuff, with the gradually unfolding nuances of taste that are achieved only through a slow and patient fermentation of dough with wild yeast.” (Yes, wild yeast! I liked the place already.) He was pumped about the salumi board, “…satiny pink and white folds of lonza and capocollo…melting into a lasting impression…” These were “cured and aged in the basement of IL Buco Alimentari e Vineria,” and “among the finest salumi in the country.” I do enjoy a great salumi board. My taste buds have been cured over the years by exceptional sopressatas, lonzas and capocollo, “home mades” served by Nonna Gabriele (maternal grandmother) and cuigini on both sides of my family. I tucked Wells’ February 2012 review in the back of my mind for later use.
It came when I received an invitation. Roberto Paris and Il Buco were toasting Marco Caprai winemaker and proprietor of Arnaldo-Capri Winery on his “Best European Winery” Wine Star Award from Wine Enthusiast Magazine. My schedule was swamped. Could I squeeze in some time to stop by? I was intrigued about going to a cocktail hour in the “simple and convivial spot” that the food critic claimed, “tastes just like Italy.”
What edged me to RSVP “accept” was my experience of NYC’s “I Love Umbria Month.” During the month’s activities celebrating Umbria in various venues around Manhattan, I attended a kick-off press event at Eataly. I was introduced to Caprai wines and a few native Umbrian dishes prepared by Eataly’s Alex Pilas. The Arnaldo-Caprai Winery is from Umbria, the region known as “the green heart of Italy.” In Umbria classic regional fare includes pork, mushrooms and lentils or legumes. From my Eataly experience, I knew the Sagrantino wines from Arnaldo-Caprai, paired beautifully with these items; I had sampled dishes made with pork, lentils and mushrooms at the press luncheon. The Sagrantino di Montefalco, I remembered Caprai’s signature wine had a rich and powerful mouth feel which heightened the earthiness of mushrooms and lentils. It complimented and lightly cut through the moist and fattiness of the pork. Though the luncheon was before Wine Enthusiast awarded Arnaldo-Caprai with its Wine Star award, I really liked the wines I had tasted.
Truly, the award is well deserved. Arnaldo-Caprai Winery is an “acknowledged leader in the production of top quality Sagrantino di Montefalco,” a wine produced exclusively from Montefalco’s indigenous Sagrantino grape. Arnaldo-Caprai wines have been globally recognized for their quality and production excellence. Caprai’s diligence in helping to restore the Sagrantino grape to a glorious plateau is applauded in the wine trade, and the winery has won many awards. The Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s award was no anomaly. Caprai’s exceptional wines were really taking off and wine lovers were appreciating just how good these wines were. A neophyte wine connoisseur, I was rapidly becoming a fan of Caprai’s wines.
Another venue might hold a slap dash ho hum affair I could easily avoid. This was all too enticing. The range of Caprai wines, its white and reds, would be accompanied by SAVEUR Top 100 Chef Salvatore Denaro’s “Umbrian light bites”and IL Buco chef, Justin Smillie’s delicious appetizers. These chefs? Caprai’s wines? Even the little time I would be able to spend there promised to be an absolutely exceptional rendering. I couldn’t afford to miss it.
I climbed the stairs to IL Buco’s private room with happy anticipation.The crowd kept coming. I mingled in to where Roberto Paris was pouring. He suggested I start with the white, the 2011 Colli Martani Grechetto DOC Grecante. The wine is made from 100% Grechetto grapes. At my first sip there was the pop of crispness and vibrancy on my tongue, refreshing to the palette. A lovely aperitif (one may also have it with fish, veal and poultry) I enjoyed it with Chef Salvatore Denaro’s incredible Grilled Spring Onions Wrapped in Fresh Pancetta, then I moved on to the Umbrian lentil soup the chef was proudly stirring. It was perfectly seasoned to show off the earthy taste of the legumes with just enough cooking time for a savory, luscious texture. Servers were coming around with trays conceived/prepared by Justin Smillie, Crocchette di Baccala, crispy house salted cod, aioli, and there were skewers of Mushroom & Artichoke.Wine and these bites were in the fold.
Back to Roberto Paris for the first of the reds, the 2010 Montefalco Rosso DOC a combination of Sangiovese, Sagrantino and Merlot grapes, followed by the more powerful and full bodied Montefalco Sagrantino Collepiano DOCG with 100 % Sagrantino grapes. I enjoyed the Rosso with a taste of the Salumi della Casa, definitely home made and yum yum lovely. Though I was becoming full and didn’t sample them, it was apparent the Rosso was great with the imported cheeses, spreads, compotes, Taralli, olives and fabulous house made whole grain breads (to die for) from Chef Justin Smillie’s Alimentary Table. The plates came in chock full of salumi and treats, and left swept clean by guests; again and again the servers came and went. Our appetites expanded, the conversation grew louder and I would soon have to leave, but not before tasting the best of the best and assessing what I had experienced thus far.
I thought the Rosso good, but I prefered the 100% Sagrantino grape wines. The Collepiano DOCG was perfect with the Panini sandwiches made on that fabulous and earth shattering Il Buco bread. (I love rustic, chewy bread.) One panini was with tender and juicy Slow-Roasted Short Ribs, gorgonzola, onion and agrodolce. The other was Roast Porchetta, arugula, salsa verde. The Collepiano DOCG is recommended for a roasted meat with juice and fat and after tasting the short rib panini, I knew why: explosive ruby red piquant flavor that cut through any heaviness of the meat and melded with the gorgonzola, onion and agrodolce. I tried the porchetta with the Sagrantino Di Montefalco 25 Anni. Striking, strong but smooth and soft velvet with a nice finish. Was that a hint of blackberries for the nose? I understand better how the tannins in the Sagrantino compliment and slice their flavors through succulent roasted meats. But I could even see myself enjoying a glass with a really great imported cheese as well.
I looked around. Time to leave. Was it possible the invited devoured the pork faster than the short ribs paninis? These chefs knew the Caprai wines and had done their homework with the menu which was exceptional. As I waited for my coat, I glanced around. Rats! Guests were eating pasta and I was missing it. I asked a woman and her partner who were chatting and smiling as they plopped what looked to be rigatoni shaped wedges with a light cream colored coating in their mouths. “Delicious, pasta…with pumpkin,” the woman said pinging some lovely light orange-yellow veggie on her fork for me to view. An obvious innovation. I would call Il Buco tomorrow and ask for the specifics, since I was already running late. (I found out it was Chef Denaro’s own take on Amatriciana* the traditional Roman dish usually served with Bucatinni.)
I finished the last of my Sagrantino Di Montefalco and savored its multiplicity of flavors on my tongue, the last a distilled earthiness. I envisioned the Franciscan monks that had kept those sacred vines growing in their monastery of St. Leonard in Montefalco in 1700. I guess I was a bit addled, and could have used some pasta to help with the wine’s power.
I said my goodbyes and slipped away from the fading din of conversation and exclamations about the full body of the Sagrantino De Montefalco. I left as I came in, happy with anticipation. I looked forward to returning to IL Buco with friends and ordering their roasted pork with a glass of Sagrantino De Montefalco 25 Anni. But before I came back, I’d have to lose the 2 pounds I gained eating this fabulous food and enjoying the equally wonderful wines.
*The traditional preparation has tomatoes, guanciale and garlic BUT rather than tomatoes Chef Denaro used Hokaido pumpkin (a very delicate, perfumed pumpkin.)
Wine Enthusiast Magazine Awards Arnaldo-Caprai Winery, “2012 European Winery of the Year.”
The Arnaldo-Caprai vineyards.
What does it take to be an award winning winery? Centuries. What contributes? Various factors, the terroir, changes in the wine making process, the winery’s sustainability and innovations, possible climate changes based on land changes and the regulations, protection and veneration of the social culture, government and owners/keepers of the harvest, their industry and efforts. Italy is an ancient land of wine making, dating from before the Romans. The social culture supported the grape harvests and enjoyed drinking wine daily; it was certainly better than water.
In current times, the 1700s, the growing of grapes and wine making was suited to Umbria, the “green heart of Italy” and Montefalco, where documents of the time noted that “fine and delicate wines were produced there in ‘beautiful and good’ vineyards.” So much was this the case that municipal sanctions were strengthened to maintain and sustain the culture of thriving, glorious vineyards and sumptuous wines. If you hampered a winery in its noble and sacred endeavors, you were in big trouble. In 1622 Cardinal Boncompagni, the Pontifical delegate in Perugia, threatened “capital punishment for anyone found cutting down grape vines.” Cutting down a plant was worthy of death? Such was the symbolism, of grape vines and the vitality of wine to the culture and the church.
The Arnaldo-Caprai vineyards in Montefalco
With this dictum in place, Montefalco was assured of continued abundant grape harvests and in good seasons and bad, productive, determined wineries. In the next two centuries, the place was considered “at the summit of the State for its wine production.” though even then, the cultivation of Sagrantino grapes, a varietal indigenous to the region, was destined to produce sparely. However, difficult their productivity, the Sagrantino vines were nevertheless preserved in ancient monasteries by wine-making monks.
Sagrantino grape vines and characteristic leaves. Arnaldo-Caprai Winery
Interest in the Sagrantino grape waned after World War II and trends had changed by the 1960s. Perhaps because of its scarce productivity, the Sagrantino grape nearly disappeared from Umbrian vineyards. It was the dedication of a few courageous wine producers and perhaps their romantic imaginations and interest in the Sagrantino as an indigenous varietal that the D.O.C. label in 1979 and D.O.C.G label in 1992 officially sealed that the important tradition of these vines would continue. After this, the few Sagrantino vines still flourishing within the city walls of Montefalco were labeled and classified. The history of the grape had been preserved, and with research, it was assessed that some vines growing in the monasteries of St. Claire and St. Leonard dated between 1700 and 1800. Certainly, when the wine producers encouraged the sustainability of the Sagrantino vines, they were also preserving the sacred nature and lineage of the wine’s association.
The Sagrantino grape varietal of spare productivity.
It was in 1988 that Marco Caprai, son of Arnaldo Caprai began managing the Arnoldo-Caprai winery that had been producing unique, top quality, Umbrian wines. Because of the father’s and son’s passion and rich understanding of the local varietals, and Marco Caprai’s desire to expand the work and develop the winery and the indigenous grape, the Sagrantino, Marco Caprai partnered with the University of Milan. His goal was to research the neglected native Umbrian Sagrantino varietal.
With the collaboration and support of top local winemakers and sustained effort, Caprai and colleagues succeeded in transforming a relatively unknown indigenous grape to one that is world renown. Because of the connection to his ancestry, with his characteristic enthusiastic fervor, Capai expanded the winery to over 375 acres of vineyards. One of the keys to his great success was and is his selection of a first-rate team. The team worked and continue to work alongside him in both wine production and company management. Together, their efforts contributed to making The Arnaldo-Caprai winery the “acknowledged leader in the production of top quality Sagrantino di Montefalco, the wine produced exclusively from the Sagrantino grape.”
For his determination in working to pioneer and produce excellent wines of unique character and depth, Marco Caprai and the Arnaldo-Caprai Winery have garnered multiple awards and global recognition. A few examples include Winery of the Year – Gambero Rosso Slow Food 2006, and Best Winery of 2011 from the Italian Sommelier Association (AIS). Their Sagrantino di Montefalco has won awards up to the present.
Not satisfied resting on these laurels developing the Sagrantino, to global renown, currently Marco continues to assist in the development and reclassification of the Montefalco territory suitable for vineyards. He works in collaboration with the La Strada del Sagrantino Project, the prime force in engineering the marketing of the territory.
The irrepressible Marco Caprai. What grapes are those?
Photo courtesy of Wine Enthusiast Magazine, from the article by Monica Larner at the announcement of the Arnaldo-Caprai “European Winery of the Year Award.”
Marco is president of the Vinegrowers of the Provincial Agricultural Union of Perugia, as well as the president of the Association of Foodstuffs Industry of Perugia. He was formerly the director of the Consortium which protects and promotes authentic Montefalco wines and president of the Agri-Foodstuffs Center of Umbria Marco Caprai was presented with the Best Producer award by the Italian Sommelier Association.
Arnaldo-Caprai vineyards in the fall.
This year, the Arnaldo-Caprai Winery has been recognized by Wine Enthusiast Magazine, which is an industry leading publication founded in 1988 to bring consumers information about the world of wine through its reviews. The periodical, which has grown to become the world’s largest and most respected magazine devoted to wine and spirits, gives out annual “Wine Star Awards.” The magazine’s editors honor the year’s finest wineries and highlight the influential personalities who have contributed greatly to the world of wine, celebrating outstanding achievement both within that given year and over time.
Wine Enthusiast Founder, Chairman, Publisher and Editor Adam Strum explained the winery’s selection, “The innovative Arnaldo-Caprai Winery has helped revive Umbria’s indigenous grapes, bringing the wine region into the international spotlight for its production of Sagrantino di Montefalco.”
Upon receiving notification of the award, Caprai said, “The Sagrantino grape has been my lifelong passion. I have dedicated my life to making Sagrantino a grape known worldwide and this award is a terrific testament to that effort. We’re honored to be chosen for such an important international award and to be in the company of some of the best wineries and wine personalities in the world.”
Marco and the Arnaldo-Capri Winery are now the toast of the town in recognition of being awarded the Wine Enthusiast‘s European Winery of 2012. On January 22, 2013, there was a Marco Caprai Producer Dinner at L’Artusi. Attendees enjoyed a delectable five course dinner with wine pairings. Marco is also being celebrated for his achievements by Roberto Paris and Il Buco Alimentari & Vineria in a private event the following week.
Can things get better than this? From the bit I have researched about this diligent, resourceful, innovative entrepreneur and fine wine artist, Marco Caprai, there are even better things on the horizon.
What is Slow Wine? Come to the Slow Wine Tasting in NYC on January 28th to Find Out!
Slow Food NYC website
SLOW FOOD, SLOW WINE, WELLNESS
If you are living in the 21st century, you know the importance of wellness and healthy lifestyle as it integrates with the wellness of our planet. You also know that ecology is tied with food production, that increased carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is threatening all of our ecosystems, that ultimately every country is interrelated regardless of whether it is a failed state with a tiny carbon footprint or a prospering one responsible for chemical mega poisoning. Whether you are connected to enhancing the current paradigm shift, changing the negative impact of corporations, fighting against GMO salmon and wheat and corn and adulterated processed foods like pink slime, or whether you are a part of the problem, turning a blind eye to all of it, the quality of what you eat and drink over the next ten years will determine whether you stay well, or build up toxins that will eventually wreck your immune system shortening your life span.
Conte Brandolini Winery is located in Vistorta, a small “borgo” within an agricultural estate in the heart of Western Fruili. The winery embraces Slow Wine concepts.
Nino Negri Winery’s “5 stelle’ Sfursat di Valtellina DOCG.” The winery embraces Slow Wine concepts.
BIRTH OF SLOW FOOD AND SLOW WINE
Did you know that this idea of countering toxic food intake and supporting healthy eco-agronomy actually began to boil over in the 1980s in Italy? As the economy of Italy improved in the 1970s-1980s and tourism burgeoned, Italian chic gave way to the lure of American globalism. Italy’s once fabulous cuisine was being thwarted by pandering to fast food franchises. Its ancient culinary traditions centering around home made and locally farmed deliciousness were being overrun by processed, chemicalized, adulterated convenience foods. If this continued, the land of sumptuous eating and wine-making would be no more. A vital aspect of Italy’s historical culture was at stake.
The Slow Food and Slow Wine website
Many understood the country was under a cultural siege and one of these was a culinary writer and journalist. Fast food was anathema to Carlo Petrini, who first came to prominence when he campaigned against the fast food chain McDonald’s opening near the Spanish Steps in Rome. Petrini’s successful activism prompted him to found a “slow food” and eventually “slow wine” movement initiating and establishing the importance of “eco-gastronomy.” In 1989 Petrini’s Slow Food nonprofit determined to influence producers and consumers in a paradigm shift away from processed, bland, unhealthful, chemical-ridden foods that Petrini recognized were destroying the gastronomy of the world. He spearheaded global advocacy starting in Italy to redirect food production back to Italy’s glorious agricultural past.
In two decades, his dream of protecting the biodiversity of the land and the cultural food traditions of Italy caught the imagination of many who saw the common sense of his platform. The movement has spread to more than 130 countries. The U.S. has the second largest chapter behind Italy which is the leader in the Slow Food and Slow Wine Movement. Just how does the movement make its impact guiding consumers’ food selections? Represented by the symbol of a snail (see the example given in the New York City Slow Food blog) restaurants or products approved by the Slow Food movement display the organization’s snail logo in their window or on their packages. Slow Food has also burgeoned into Slow Wines and wineries in Italy and elsewhere have employed the principles initiated by Carlo Petrini over two decades ago..
Assiduous grape selection after the harvest at the Nino Negri Winery…embracing the Slow Wine concepts.
The Slow Food precepts have encompassed the area of wines and wineries. Wineries in Italy and elsewhere have employed the vital factors initiated by Carlo Petrini over two decades ago. You will be able to taste Slow Wines from the wineries pictured here and many others at a grand tasting event in NYC. This year the Slow Wine Guide 2013 is presenting its latest edition on January 28th in New York City, January 30th in Miami and February 4th in San Francisco. To celebrate, Slow Wine and Vinitaly International are hosting this grand wine tasting.
SLOW WINE AND VINITALY INTERNATIONAL WINE TASTING EVENT (NYC)
For this wine tasting evening, Slow Wine’s collaboration with Vinitaly International offers an exceptional opportunity. Vinitaly holds the largest annual wine event in the world in Verona, Italy. Vinitaly’s expertise and presence assures that January 28th will be an unforgettable night in Italian wine tasting and education for New York City oenophiles and Slow Food and Slow Wine NYC members.
Slow Wine Guide, 2013 Attendees of the grand wine tasting event in NYC will receive a free copy of the Slow Wine Guide 2013 ($25 value)
Sagrantino grapes from the multiple award winning Arnaldo-Caprai Winery, which embraces Slow Wine concepts.
The Slow Wine Guide highlights the extent to which wineries follow the slow food, slow wine concepts. What’s a slow wine? Thirst Wine Merchants in Fort Greene Brooklyn describe it perfectly. It’s wine made from vineyards without pesticides or herbicides, and without chemical additives or flavors. Slow wines are made sustainably, organically, biodynamically. They are made on a small scale, from grapes grown in low-yielding, dry-farmed vineyards. Slow winemakers make their careful selection of grapes and harvest them by hand. No laboratory yeasts are used. Ambient yeasts allow the fermented grapes to naturally unfold revealing their distinct terroir (place of origin). New oak barrels (if necessary) are used with circumspection. The winemakers who follow these methods do it as has been done for centuries. There is no necessary certification, because winemakers believe this is in the best interest of preserving a tradition and making a great wine. In fact, this is the way my family members make wine, cherry liquor and lemoncello in my ancestors’ home town, Bagnoli del Trigno, Italy.
The vineyards of the Arnaldo-Caprai Winery, Wine Enthusiast Magazine’s 2012 European Winery of the year.
If you attend this Slow Wine tasting event, you will receive the added benefit of trying approved Slow Wines using the complimentary Slow Wine Guide 2013 to make your selections for future purchase. You will be tasting graciousness and supporting a movement which has taken hold and which will continue to grow exponentially as it gains critical mass against mechanized, adulterated, industrialized food and wine.
ABOUT THE SLOW WINE GUIDE
Like the 2012 guide, this year’s Slow Wine guide does not use a point system to evaluate wines. Instead, according to the Slow Wine US Tour article, wineries are judged “in their entirety, taking into consideration the wine quality, typicity and adherence to terroir, value, environmental sensitivity and ecologically sustainable viticultural practices.” wine connoisseurs, US industry producers, Italian wine aficionados and just your average oenophiles. Last year, The Slow Wine Guide 2012 debuted its first ever English-language edition in what was a compilation of expert reviews of Italian wineries, examining their production as it related to region and a myriad of other factors. This year’s Slow Wine Guide 2013 presenting its latest edition on January 28th in New York City, promises to offer interesting revelations and additions to last year’s guide.
SLOW WINE GUIDE SYMBOLS
Because Slow Wine was conceived to indicate the reality of the present Italian wine “landscape,” the guide presents reviews of 400 different wineries. Each of these wineries in Italy has been visited by Slow Food experts and their evaluations employ these symbols:
- The Snail (Slow Food symbol) indicates a cellar that has distinguished itself through its interpretation of sensorial, territorial, environmental and personal values in harmony with the Slow Food philosophy.
- The Bottle is attributed to cellars which reveal a consistently high quality throughout their range of wines.
- The Coin indicates great value.
A wine from the Nino Negri Winery, embracing Slow Wine precepts.
The Conte Brandolini Winery has been in the Brandolini family since 1780. The Brandolini estate is beautiful and boasts a lovely villa and gardens.
The Slow Wine guide is published by Slow Food Editore (the publishing arm of Slow Food Italy) and distributed in the U.S. by Chelsea Green. Following the events, the book will be available for purchase nationally on Amazon.com and select retail stores throughout US.
Al Pacino on Broadway in Glengarry Glen Ross. You Missed a Phenomenal Production!
Al Pacino is a consummate actor. In the Broadway production of Glengarry Glen Ross (David Mamet won the Pulitzer in 1984) insightfully directed by Daniel Sullivan, Pacino shines. His portrayal of Shelly Levine is truthful, vital and empathetic. He is backed up by a superb ensemble of actors, each a bulls-eye in his own right. Together, the cast adheres beautifully like a religious mosaic. They are powerfully felt, moment to moment, vibrant, subtly manipulative yet outrageous. They overwhelm. And when you step back at the play’s conclusion to see the work they have wrought together, the impact of the production’s meaning smashes you like lightening.
This setting may be the Regan era economic corporate construct of 1983, but the play reminds that this is the seminal period that got us to 2013. The hapless characters are snared in a vise of proving their economic worth and are forced to predate their hapless victims. Through their struggles, we see how more than ever, as citizens and social creatures we are compelled to deal with the horrific results of corporate fascism, greed, corruption, callousness. As the characters game each other with slippery ploys and psychological maneuverings, we know the score, that the winners today are the losers of tomorrow, that ambition and greed are infinite and infinitely destructive, and that they, like Sisyphus who must roll the boulder up the mountain knowing he will slip and fall to the same result every time, are born to failure in a culture that is unrelentingly wicked. Indeed, even corporations, like Sisyphus, are beset by the ever-increasing need for profitability, cost cutting and downsizing to eliminate their “dead weight, useless eaters.” The play is timely, Mamet was prescient and the production is faithful in spooling out how devouring corporations, represented by the callous actions of Mitch and Murray, wipe out true industry and humanity.
Having played Ricky Roma in the film, Pacino pulls off a miracle in his Shelly Levine, a character who was once like Roma but whose soul has become seared and savaged by the daily press of demeaning “employment” that offers no uplift nor ignites any spark of hope. Pacino portrays Shelly as a shabby shadow of once brimming confidence, now smarmy with the unseemly rot of connivance and calculation that is required to prey upon clients, cornering and badgering them into purchases, regardless of their wants and needs. His Shelly is tired, desperate, mentally fogged, tipping a precarious balance of initial fight and bluster and later waning energy and soul death.
In his scene where Shelly flickers back to life in a last harrah which we discover has been prompted by his sordid theft in a deal with Dave Moss, Pacino’s delight barreling into the office announcing he has made the windfall kindles our enthusiasm. His commanding Williamson to ” Get the chalk and put me on the board,” (in competition for the cadillac) convinces us that Shelly isn’t a hack after all, he is the selling machine he used to be. This counterpoint becomes all the more devastating when we and Shelly discover the sale is a deception and the deceiver, swindler and liar has been hoodwinked. When the revelation comes that the old couple who signed the check in the coup de grace deal are broke, Pacino slumps physically, demeaned and deflated once more in failure. Prayed upon by his delusions, the reality hits him and us with ferocity as John Williamson, played with precision by David Harbour, twists in the knife deeper for the kill. Williamson takes a particular relish and glee asking Shelly about the couple’s apparent poverty, “Didn’t you see the way they were living?” and then snapping out in triumph, “They just like to talk to salesmen.” Pacino allows us to feel the desolation creeping back into Shelly’s soul. In his performance he wrenches all the emotional heft out of himself and enervates us with the power of living this character as we, with Shelly, victimized by the corporate ethos, cultural apathy and our own delusions about “making it” face his inevitable doom of hopelessness.
As John Williamson, David Harbour makes the perfect foil to Pacino’s Shelly. He has taken the role far from Kevin Spacey’s interpretation in the film. Spacey brilliantly plays Williamson as droll, dry, milktoast. Harbour is perfection, the golden-haired, relative of someone at Mitch and Murray brought in to cut the dead wood and mechanize people and sales for profitability. Harbour’s Williamson is overtly cruel and aggressive, loud and brash. He smarms Pacino’s Shelly, showing that middle managers, too, can play the game, conniving, manipulating, calculating, tormenting. We note Williamson’s slow deadliness as he listens to Shelly’s pleas, appears to be yielding, then with enjoyment backpedals, rejecting Shelly’s demands. He refuses to give Shelley the premium leads an intention he had all along, but with double speak he blames the result on Shelly’s selling failures as the rationale of denying him. Through this scene beautifully portrayed by Harbour and Pacino, we see the malevolence and self-victimization and cruelty in their representative dance driven by a market economy.
The symbol of middle management, Harbour aptly forges his character’s knowledge of the divide between the two classes of workers, the managers and the slaves. Harbour’s Williamson carries the banner of his bosses and will never put it in the hands of the underlings. He portrays this knowledge, in his attitude, his carriage, showing his superiority with dominant confidence, regardless of the slaves’ resentment. His impeccable characterization as the perfect bastard is unforgettable, one you must grovel to, yet can manifest hatred to, up to the point when you remember he has the power to decide your fate. Harbour’s Williamson is inviolate and trenchant, recognizable as every corporate middle management position, the henchmen of henchmen.
The second foil to Pacino’s Shelly is John C. McKinley as George Moss. McKinley relates Moss’ fury with exceptional intelligence. His rage is layered and he shows that the closer Moss comes to fulfilling his plan of conniving a co-worker to steal for him, leaving the colleague holding the bag, the more irate he becomes. McKinley’s duplicitous Moss games his colleagues and Williamson with bluster and bravado that is empty and filled with complaint. McKinley subtly weaves together Moss’ arrogance, rage and shadiness which we only understand later, having been connived by his rants and apparently legitimate condemnations against Mitch and Murray. McGinley’s Moss is dominant alpha in believing that not only can he best Mitch and Murray at their own level of rapaciousness and cruelty, but he can use the company’s desperate slaves to effect his plan to sell the premium leads to create a profit for himself.
We especially see McGinley’s brilliance during his “Fuck You” tirade. In this scene McGinley allows Moss’s presumptuous arrogance to ignite beautifully barreling out a crescendo of “Fuck yous,” to the staff and Williamson with a ferocity that becomes humorous. We revel in the depiction. It is comical and identifiable, for we have been at that same place of having to swallow so much crap, “Fuck You” sums up our primal scream of frustration. We feel McGinley’s empathy with Moss’s rage at being cornered by Mitch and Murray, snared by his dreams of “becoming rich” and himself for believing the lie. It is felt experience and we know that behind the rage is the despair that things will never change, for we can do little but be beholden to bosses’ emp0loyment at will. Can we select the alternative, joblessness and utter failure?
McGinley enacts the scene to intimate Moss’ self-deception at too readily believing his delusional plan will work. Once again comes the lightening crash as we realize Moss’ rage is at himself, another failure gone amuck. His “Fuck Yous,” are in actuality, “I fucked me.” He has screwed himself and has brought everyone down with him, except his enemy Mitch and Murray. They will thrive, continuing to grind slaves to bits because the climate is a desperate one and there is no protection for non-union workers. Ultimately, Moss and Shelly will be put in jail for their dreams.
As Ricky Roma, Bobby Cannavale aptly steps up to the challenge of playing the character Pacino played in the film. His Roma is more direct, apparently honest and less slickly selling a fabulous concept to his mark. Cannavale’s Roma is portrayed with vibrancy and candor. We see that he doesn’t understand the desperation of Shelly, Moss and George Aaronow, played excellently as a counterpoint by Richard Schiff. Unlike Shelly and the others, he is the alpha, the star performer, on the top of the heap. We enjoy watching him finesse his prey, James (played by Jeremy Shamos) and are unnerved when Williamson blows the deal for him.
Cannavale’s portrayal brilliantly makes us want Roma to succeed, though it is counter to our sense of the Golden Rule and human decency. With his clever, likable depiction we admire Roma, his talents, his charm. We enjoy seeing him at work, forgetting the sale is a con until it fails and Shamos’ James leaves in fear. That reality crash snaps Cannavale’s Roma and it awakens us. The charm flees like James and Roma turns on Williamson. It is then Cannavale’s portrayal shows that behind Roma’s superb salesmanship is the same desperation and fear that have overtaken Shelly, Moss and Aaronow.
Though Roma is a winner today, he knows the future is bleak. Underneath the dominance is a painful understanding; he is out there on his own and the company he works for puts obstacles in his path and is incapable of providing the proper resources for him to effect his talents. It is only a matter of time before the premium leads will be given to a new top seller on the board. Cannavale intimates this understanding when Roma draws in Pacino’s Shelly and compliments him for his creative “crap slinging” on James. We are allowed to empathize with Cannavale’s Roma, after all, for like the others, has duped himself. The future is now. Little does he realize the game is up for all of them. With the leads gone, Roma will be joining his pals selling old leads that can’t be sold, as two of his colleagues, the one he planned to work, end up in jail.
As the low key salesperson, Richard Schiff’s George is us. He listens to Dave, Shelly and Ricky with tired sensitivity, with every step of the way relating to fruitlessness of the struggle of each man. Yet he is the solid presence that tries and loses, not with grace, but with quiet resignation. Schiff’s George is exceptional. And his counterpoint characterization enhances the complexity of the dynamic in the struggle each character has with his own delusions of which George gracefully seems to be absent of. He has gotten to the bare reality and he puts up with it all until he, too, has to cry out with frustration. A superb performance, Schiff listens, is always present. Wonderful.
Mamet saw what many recognized yet tossed aside in their quest for the riches during the Regan era of corporate growth and shrinking unions and voiding worker’s rights. The productive, aggressive ones, the middle management henchmen and those like uber confident Ricky Roma would one day be on the refuse heap. Why? Even in the market, and with hedge funds, past performance guarantees nothing. Mamet’s work and this production are timeless and reveal that our cultural dynamic needs to change. Corporations must not be the feudal lords. We must not allow them power by handing over our imagination, creativity, personalities and dreams to them because we have swallowed the lie that survival is steeped in economic despair. We are more than “survivalists” and this is not a reality program, it a paradigm that we can end if we choose to. Sullivan’s and the casts’ production show that what people accept, they have. The lies and delusions they allow, ensnare them. It is a powerful message for all time. If you missed the production see the film and read this review again. You shouldn’t miss it a second time.
Chris Botti, Master Trumpeter and his Band at the Blue Note NYC.
Chris Botti, Billy Kilson-drums, Richie Goods-bassist, Leonardo Amuedo-guitarist, Billy Childs-pianist (to the left not pictures)
Chris Botti with Billy Kilson on drums. First part of the show on January 6th
Whenever I see Chris Botti and his band at the Blue Note Jazz Club (NY) or at the Tiles Center in Westbury, Long Island, at Tanglewood, at Carnegie Hall or at the Saratoga Jazz Festival, venues where I’ve seen him perform live over the years, I’ve enjoyed watching the surrounding audience members. They are a pretty inclusive demographic bunch and their enthusiastic response always reminds me that timeless music resonates with most individuals, regardless of age, race, sex, even musical preference. Sure, we all have our favorite music styles. But some musicians are so exceptional in their craft and talent, that their technique bridges the great or lessert divides between jazz and pop, rock and classical, funk, hip-hop and blues.
Chris Botti, honing in on fabulous Billy Childs, December 27th show.
Billy Childs, pianist, composer, arranger, musical genius and Guggenheim fellow.
Caroline Campbell opening the number before Botti joins her in their duet playing Emmanuel.
Lisa Fischer, Richie Goods, Billy Kilson and Chris Botti (December 27th)
Billy Kilson, Chris Botti, Leonardo Amuedo (December 27th)
Trumpeter extraordinaire, Chris Botti, at the top of his game is such a musician. What is interesting to me about Botti’s evolution during the time I’ve become familiar with his music (last 6 years) is that it is as if he has been seamlessly breezing from opportunity to opportunity, never looking back, never taking a pause to reevaluate where he is and where he intends to go. He is just on his way and there’s no stopping him.
Digging the music as he attaches his mute. (December 27th) He asked his tour manager to bring his mute on Jan. 6th…he had left it upstairs in the Blue Note’s musicians’ lounge.
This dedication to craft is what appears to fuel Botti’s development. Certainly that and his work ethic have enabled him to move away from the stylistic niche where he began, perhaps to the chagrin of other musicians whose choices directed them along very different paths. However eclectic his music has become, touching upon everything from classical to pop to blues to jazz, in a melding fusion, it is his brand, his identity of being true to himself, that makes Botti a celebrated trumpeter with a global following. I would imagine in the next five years, he will be pushing the envelope and finding himself in places where even he will be amazed he has reached.
Chris Botti, Richie Goods, bassist, Billy Kilsonm drums
Chris Botti has been growing this world wide renown since having signed on to Columbia records in 2001. His work with Paul Simon, Sting and other artists like Michael Buble, Andrea Bocelli, Josh Groban, Yo Yo Ma, Steven Tyler, et. al., and recently Barbra Streisand, has increased his star power exponentially and garnered millions in record sales. He has won various awards and three of his albums made it to #1 on Billboard‘s jazz album chart. He has been nominated four times for Grammys, twice for albums Italia and In Boston. His latest work, Impressions, which has been nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Pop Instrumental Album is an eclectic mix of jazz, pop and other genres including music by Chopin, Gershwin, Harold Arlen, R. Kelly, Randy Newman, others and a pair of songs co-written by Botti with Herbie Hancock and David Foster.
An integral part of Botti’s shaping his music is his incredible band with whom none of his evolution would have been possible or sure. For example in his 8th year performing at the renown jazz club The Blue Note (also in Milan, Tokoyo and Nagoya, Japan) the incomparable Billy Childs and Billy Kilson are Botti’s bedrock foundation. They have been with the Botti for years and have their own fan following and careers. Likewise, other band members have whirled in and out of Botti’s sphere, spinning their careers toward other venues for a season, like violinist Lucia Micarelli who, after an injury on tour with Botti, took time off to heal and ever since has been acting in HBO’s production about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, Treme.
Billy Childs listening as Botti discusses their welcome residency at the Blue Note.
Current band members who performed with Botti at the Blue Note for three weeks, 42 performances (two shows a day) also have toured with Botti up to 300 days of the year, unless other commitments took them away for a time. Lisa Fischer joined her old buddy Mick Jagger when he took The Stones on tour for six weeks and Botti had to make do in her absence.
Yet for those who tour with Botti, the Blue Note residency is a welcome respite. First and foremost in the band is Guggenheim fellow and three time Grammy winner, pianist/composer/arranger the phenomenal Billy Childs. Next is Mr. Awesomess, kick-ass drummer Billy Kilson. Amazing vocalist, Grammy winner and Rolling Stones singer for 18 years, Lisa Fischer has an operatic voice range, musicality and technique bar none. The virtuoso concert violinist Caroline Campbell, the youngest person to be inducted into the Pittsburgh Jazz Hall of fame, bassist, Richie Goods and versatile world renown guitarist Leonardo Amuedo have contributed their own unique talents and have enabled the group to soar on new wings.
Botti making an ironic joke in response to an audience member’s comment about Caroline Campbell’s beauty.
Chris Botti and the brilliant Lisa Fisher
Fischer’s range melds beautifully with Botti’s sound.
Check out Botti’s website and the websites of band members Billy Childs, Billy Kilson, Lisa Fischer, Richie Goods, Leonardo Amuedo and Caroline Campbell for updates on performances and music albums. And be sure to watch the Grammys in February. After being nominated a number of times, this may be the year Botti takes home the gold.
From Westchester to NYC. New York Regional Theater’s Burgeoning Westchester Collaborative Theater
WCT Program, 2012 Winterfest of Ten Minute Plays
Regional Theater is the engine that drives original theatrical productions and puts them on the map, moving them toward greatness. If new plays are nurtured and developed with love, effort and artistry, eventually they may be shepherded to Broadway. This is especially true if the theatrical group has an esprit de corps and inspired guide to watch over the flock of artists and their offerings. The beauty of such non profit theater is that there are no chains shackling its creativity. Without the pressures of time and money weighing heavily upon it, the best regional theaters make the most of their incredible opportunity to experiment, innovate and collaborate with a fluid mix of playwrights, actors and directors.
This has been the case with Westchester Collaborative Theater, established in 2011 in Ossining, New York. Within the span of barely two short years, this regional theater group’s productivity has burgeoned like Jack’s magical beanstalk. WCT has produced Winterfest 2011 and Winterfest 2012. These events included a number of Ten Minute Plays, original offerings by WCT member playwrights…world premiers, acted and directed by professionals and aspirants. With a variety of individuals at the ready, a spirit of generous camaraderie infuses openness and flexibility not regularly accessible in the closed atmosphere of stuffy professional theater which is hesitant to take risks.
Campbell Scott, award winning actor and director, was a guest artist in November.
A blessing for WCT is its proximity to New York City, the theater hub of the world. Guest artists who live in the area, like comedian Robert Klein (last year) and in November of this year, well known actor and filmmaker Campbell Scott, are able to share their talent and expertise and serve as an inspiration to veteran performers and engaged newbees. The atmosphere at WCT is creative and non threatening, the overriding risk of lousy box office receipts absent. WCT thrives on donations, grants and the good will of patrons and the surrounding community. It is a labor of love won by the efforts of dedicated individuals like Executive Director, Alan Lutwin, who adore live theater and the living moments of performance art.
This year’s Winterfest follows on the heels of a productive year for the Westchester Collaborative Theater which included the scheduled Summerfest of One-Act play readings, monthly LAB with developmental readings and talk backs about select playwrights’ works in progress and a full length play reading. As a result of WCT’s labs, playwright/director Michael Thomas Cain was able to develop his play and present Enough’s Enough at La MaMa E.T.C. in NYC as part of the 2012 NY International Fringe Festival.
The works-in progress initiative for playwrights, directors and actors has been exciting. Each week guest artists with years of experience in the entertainment industry engaged in readings and talk backs. In November award winning actor and director, Campbell Scott (Victor Geddes with Julia Roberts in Dying Young and the protagonist of David Mamet’s The Spanish Prisoner, Co-director of the award winning film, The Big Night with Stanley Tucci) performed a reading of The Wife and the Widow Next Store by Richard Manichello. The playwright, screenwriter, actor, poet (penned the award winning Choices of the Heart for television) who wrote Agnes of God, John Pielmeier (he also wrote the screenplay for the film Agnes of God) was another guest artist in November who shared his experiences and contributions to the theater and television community.
WCT Director, Alan Lutwin, introduces the 2012 Winterfest
This season’s 2012 Winterfest of Ten Minute Plays included new members, professionals and those whose love of theater, writing, directing and acting have kept them involved in regional theater in the New York City area. Many of the artists’ works have appeared in Drama festivals in New York City and around the nation. Of these, some have been semi-finalists or finalists at the festivals, nominees of major prizes and award winners of other venues.
One such notable is Richard Manichello, 30 years in the entertainment business (actor, producer, Artistic Director of Peekskill Playhouse) and an Emmy Award-winning director and writer of stage, film and television. Manichello directed two plays for the WCT Winterfest. The first was Hooters, written by playwright Gabrielle Fox. Fox’ plays have been produced throughout New York City and the metro region. Manichello also directed Lava Sus Manos by playwright Jess Erick.
Hooters by Gabrielle Fox. Directed by Richard Manichello, with Jess Erick as Becca and Adam Glatzl as Sammy.
The Hunters by Joe McDonald, Directed by Matthew Silver. Janice Kirkel (left) as Eileen and Lorraine Federico as Rose.
New Orleans Playwright, Rosary O’Neill’s Turtle Soup from White Suits in Summer. Directed by WCT actor and director Elaine Hartel.
Turtle Soup: Suzanne Ochs as Lucille (left) and Janice Kirkel as Aunt Jean.
Another professional, Rosary O’Neill, whose work was presented at the Winterfest, like Manichello, has weighty career experience and many awards and fellowships under her belt. O’Neill who is from New Orleans is a published/produced playwright (22 published plays) novelist, actor, director and retired Professor of Drama and Speech at Loyola University of New Orleans. The fourth edition of her textbook, The Actor’s Checklist, is used in schools nationwide. O’Neill founded the Southern Repertory Theatre in New Orleans and for many years was its Artistic Director, producing a number of the plays she had written. The comedic 10 minute play “Turtle Soup,” directed by Elaine Hartel (actor and director for WCT and other New York regional theater groups) was excerpted from O’Neil’s semi-autobiographical play about a wealthy family in New Orleans, White Suits in Summer.
Snow Birds by Csaba Teglas. Directed by Michael Thomas Cain with Jon Barb and Leslie Smithey
For more information about the Westchester Collaborative Theater’s 2012 Winterfest of Ten Minute Plays, the actors, directors and playwrights, or for information about membership in this active regional theater company, check their Facebook page, Westchester Collaborative Theater.
Not pictured, Take One for the Team by Carol Mark. Directed by Joe Albert Lima. With John Barbera as Will, Margie Ferris as Terri and Taku Hirai as Kevin.
Bobbo’s Bullet by Wayne Paul Mattingly. Directed by Joe Albert Lima. Left to right, Sara Beth Colten, Femi Alou, Pe’er Klein, Margie Ferris.
Lava Sus Manos by Jess Erick. Directed by Richard Manichello. From left to right, Femi Alou, Shelley Lerea, Tracey McAllister, Ryan Mallon, Mary Roberts.
Umbria Has Come to New York City. Only Two Weeks Left to Celebrate the Best of Umbria
The beautiful Umbria: olive trees and valley beyond.
If you’ve traveled to central Italy and visited Umbria, you’ve explored the picturesque medieval villages, and enjoyed the breathtaking mountains and lush valleys of this “Green Heart of Italy,” or “il cuor verde d’Italia.” Umbria is known for its sumptuous cuisine (The wines and oil olive oil are exceptional.) remarkable artisan jewelry and Deruta ceramics. If you love fashionable cashmere knitwear, you know you will be able to purchase some of the most chic outfits in Milano, Italy. Well, Umbria is an important hub of a cashmere knitwear manufacturing district in Italy.
I Love Umbria Month in NYC
Though traveling to Umbria may be not in your immediate plans, you are fortunate because Umbria has come to the U.S. If you are in New York City the month of November until December 8, you will be able to experience the best of Umbria in various locations around the city like Eataly, Il Buco Alimentari & Vineria and Di Paolo’s Fine Foods.In an official proclamation Mayor Bloomberg has declared November “I Love Umbria Month!”For the rest of November until December 8th, the city will be hosting cultural and culinary events in celebration of the best that Umbria has to offer in its wine, ceramics, olive oil, cuisine, jewelry, even music.
The Sagrantino the signature grape found in Umbrian wine
Eataly’s restaurants are currently serving traditional Umbrian fare paired with Umbrian wines like the signature Sagrantino. Eataly chefs are hosting cooking classes that focus on typical Umbrian recipes. Their wine store is holding its final wine tastings the next two weeks on Fridays and Saturdays, and there will be tastings in La Piazza.
Additional trade and consumer tasting events have been featured at Il Buco Alimentari & Vineria in the heart of NoHo. Around the city, participating jewelers are still offering exquisite Umbrian jewelry. In Little Italy, Di Palo’s Fine Foods has hosted olive oil tastings and wine tastings, some of the finest from the region.
Eataly’s La Scuola, site of the luncheon
The month long festivities were heralded with the first of a number of events, a luncheon: Umbria, “A Land Rich in Time.” Held Wednesday, November 7th at Eataly’s La Scuola Grande, it was hosted by the Centro Estero Umbria(Umbria Trade Agency) and renown chef Lidia Bastianich. The sumptuous luncheon featured dishes typical of the region with Umbrian wine pairings. For the Antipasto, diners lunched on Chef Alex Pilas’ exceptional “Porcini con Crescione, Finocchio & Tartufo,” paired with a white wine of the region.
Marco Caprai and Dan Amatuzzi
Eataly’s wine director, Dan Amatuzzi, Marco Caprai of The Caprai estate and Marco Petrini, President of Monini North America, Inc., discussed Umbrian cuisine at length. Amatuzzi and Caprai explained the wine pairings for each dish and emphasized the Sagrantino as the signature Umbrian grape whose wine with its gripping tannins and ability to be aged for years makes it a classic of the region.
Marco Petrini
Petrini spoke about the olive oil produced as unique to Umbria in its mild, nutty taste profile that marries perfectly with porcini and legumes, ingredients widely used in Umbrian cuisine.
After the antipasto, guests enjoyed the Secondo which was Porchetta con Lenticchie Umbre. The combination of roasted pork resting on a bed of lentils prepared with Umbrian olive oil, nutty, fresh, smooth, and accompanying regional seasonings was a sensational meld of flavors. The dish was perfection and exemplary of the region’s select recipe for culinary delight.
To describe the Dolce course as tasty would be an understatement. The Torta Umbra all’Olio d’Oliva & Gelato was not cloyingly sweet, nor heavy as one might expect as it was made with Umbrian olive oil. The cake was light, airy and extremely flavorful; its gentility coupled well with the dessert wine, Tenuta Rocca di Fabbri, Sagrantino di Montefalco Passito DOCG 2005. The pairing pinged my palate and completed the progression of dishes with an intriguing finish, leaving me with thoughts of returning to such dishes and pairings again and again.
Porcini con Crescione, Finocchio & Tartufo
Porchetta con Lenticchie Umbre
Torta Umbra all’Olio d’Oliva & Gelato
However, I will only be able to revisit Umbria until December 8th when the month long festivities in NYC come to a close. The event breakdown in depth can be found at the link for I Heart UImbria.
The schedule of the last two weeks follows below.
Week Three: (November 23-30) Focus on Truffles and Legumes
Week Four: (December 1-8) Focus on Cuisine
You will be missing out if you don’t make it to Eataly or one of the other venues during the “I Love Umbria” month’s remaining festivities. It’s not too late to enjoy a glass of Umbrian wine or dine on some superb Umbrian fare. You’ll be glad you did.
Grace on Broadway with Paul Rudd, Ed Asner, Michael Shannon
If you are an atheist, an agnostic, you despise so-called religious Republicans who are actually hypocrites, are intellectually gifted or are a native New Yorker, run to see Craig Wright’s play Grace, now at the Cort Theater. If you deem yourself a true follower of Christ spiritually (anti the political religious right) the play will resonate with you to a point and then, perhaps, as it did for me, it might skew off into a spiritual Neverland, making you wonder if the twisted logic was the playwright’s intent or his attempt to enliven the theatrical experience and create an uber-drama. Either way, the play, for me, became hyperbolic contrivance which made the ending/beginning/ending diminish the suspense and realism and crimped the development and emotional power of the characters and their relationships.
Steve (Paul Rudd) is a Christian who with Sara, his Christian wife (Kate Arrington) have moved to Florida where Steve is waiting to manifest the financial arrangements for a deal he has made with an investor. As the play unfolds, we see the relationship between loving husband and wife that appears to be perfect grows a few developing wrinkles as Steve waits for the financing to come through and Sara is left alone to her own devices which include becoming friendly with car accident disfigured, next door condo neighbor, Sam. Thrown into the mix for good pleasure is the friendly German exterminator guy, an unrecognizable (the audience didn’t applaud him when he entered as they did Rudd because he WAS THE CHARACTER and not Ed Asner) absolutely flawless Ed Asner as naturalized American citizen, Karl.
Steve’s success with his marriage and his relationship with Sara unravels as his business plans explode his dreams. He confronts a financial meltdown, litigation and loss of his wife. At the worst possible moment, Sara tells Steve she is leaving him for Sam because she and Sam love each other. During the build up to the crisis, there are critical lightening flashes and the actors freeze momentarily. These are pivotal moments where events could have gone differently, the playwright suggests, yet they did not because of…whatever: grace? lack of grace? the characters’ choices? Does it matter? These breaks “da da” add to the play’s pretension and reveal a muddled and unclear flirtation with theme that never blossoms into a true relationship What we should see and don’t is that the permutations of choices for the characters are innumerable, but the plot feels so fixed and artificial that the lightening flashes/turning points are woefully weak. They actually detract from the play’s import.
This is partly due to the playwright’s choice to begin the play at the end which diffuses curiosity and engagement and the suspense that the actors with their superb talents manage to create. The play’s construction as it stands is faulty because the playwright begins at a conventional high point and turns it on its head, making it a low point with Steve’s shooting himself at the outset. Why does the playwright begin with the ending? This is not Pinter’s Betrayal, a seamlessly constructed play which used the same contrivance of chronological event reversal with great subtly and integration of theme. Grace‘s chronological event reversal, then move to flashback and forward movement of events doesn’t really work with the thematic structure given the content. The obfuscation for the sake of clarity boggles. Is this or isn’t this the playwright’s comprehension of grace/lack of grace unfolding from missed opportunities and poor decisions?
What continues after Steve’s opening suicide is a sort of cinematic reversal backwards. Rudd as Steve takes backward steps. The plot reverses the thread to Rudd/Steve shooting Sara which happened a minute before his own suicide. Then Rudd/Steve and Sara (Kate Arrington) literally step backward and next we see Steve shoot Sam which happened a minute before he shot Sara. Again, there are lightening flashes and character freezes and the stage darkens and the setting moves to a month or so prior. Now we are in a present moving flashback construct designed to show us what events occurred to lead to these three deaths. From then on, the action is forward and linear and we see how Steve and the others spun out of control in a series of pathetic events where they act upon each other to create their own dance of death. Even the hapless, atheistic Karl falls prey to Rudd’s graceless shooting spree at the moment when Karl is perhaps open to receiving grace, ready to believe after experiencing what is tantamount to a miraculous redemptive action, that, if not God, “there may be something” that caused the action. So Karl, too, ends up melodramatically dead. However, the flashback thread leaves off at the juncture where Steve/Rudd is pointing the gun. We know what follows. We have already seen it in the play’s opening. Despite our longing for a deus ex machina or Godly intervention to stay Steve’s mania for vengeance and an end to his faithless hopelessness, no one here receives grace. They die. (We don’t know if neighbors reported the shots, called 911 and in the intervening half hour three were saved. We do know that Rudd/Steve, who pointed the gun to his head is certainly dead.)
When thinking about grace and attempting to understand such a complicated concept, I am reminded of the brilliant film Nights of Cabiria. The character of Cabiria at the film’s end has experienced terrible treatment at the hands of fate or God. The man who was to marry her has robbed her and was going to kill her, though he does not, though she begs for death. Instead he leaves her alone with her utter shame and hopelessness. Destitute, alone as a former prostitute, she has nothing to fall back on, no family, education, nothing. She considers suicide, but something within her retreats: the mystery occurs. She receives the grace not to end her life, though she has every reason to do so. As she walks to who knows where in a dark wood, she comes across young people who are dancing, singing and celebrating a birthday. Through her tears, she receives whatever it is, grace (?) to smile and join them at their invitation. She is, her life is and we know she has received the grace to make it to the next day and the next and the next. Wow! No religious overtones, no religious sentiment, but you get it and you understand the human condition perfectly.
Frankly, I found if very hard to understand the playwright’s portrayal of Steve’s faith and Christianity connected with the lack of grace bestowed at the play’s beginning/end. I certainly cannot argue that his shootings and suicide have taken them all to a better world. That is not manifest in the play. The characterization of Steve is a conundrum of illogic. The irrationality a facile, thin and overused point of character taken from the mold of three decades of violent acts from Steven King’s villains. This is a mash, a combination of pedantic stereotyping of what liberals think the religious right are capable of and what their Christianity is all about.
Unfortunately, that’s too superficial, too pat and the stereotype too obvious and contrived. The dire warning fits into a precast mold. The characters’ “Christianity” is a glaring fault of the play upon which everything hinges. It didn’t have to be. Why include it? The playwright has given the logic for Steve, the everyman, to commit suicide: wife leaving him, business dreams destroyed, money robbed, defrauded by his own naive actions which were prompted by “faith,” facing litigation and the possibility of jail. He faces complete ruination. It’s enough to suicide the mildest of men. What the playwright has thrown into the mix is that fundamental Christians think “this isn’t supposed to happen to a person of faith.” Yet when it does and grace doesn’t come through, nor God, nor love, nor anything redemptive, he-Steve can’t handle it and exacts his revenge. His “faith” all along was a crutch, insincere or his killer nature buried by his “faith” surfaces. Enter the wacko religious mother in Carrie; enter the murderous religious villains whose “Christianity” has set them off to kill. It’s an atheist’s wet dream that not only is there no God, but the no God really sucks at being a no God. Well, somehow, this is all too obviously constructed for effect and it smells of the paint of too much puppet master and not with the apparent seamlessness of brilliant writing.
Because the characterization of Steve is so flawed, all the more magnificent praise goes to Paul Rudd, who with his SHEER GENIUS of talent and skill makes this wooden stereotype real, likable and amiable. Paul Rudd, courageously took on a part with so many holes, yet fills them up with back story and rationale to convey the character’s vitality. He makes what is nearly impossible, possible; he makes believable the character’s preaching and living his faith. Rudd portrays Steve’s belief his relationship with Sara lovingly yet with an undercurrent of fear. With great realism he portrays Steve’s belief in God and his hope. And Rudd “keeps the faith” until events spiral beyond his control, and we get to see Rudd’s brilliance as he spools down the character’s faith, sanity and hope. Of course, he is helped by the acting marvels of the rest of the cast, Asner, Shannon and Arrington who are all terrific. They make the play. If not for them and the director, Dexter Bullard, HELP ME JESUS!!!
Again, whether it is the fault of the plot which forces Rudd to leap to a tailspin downward, or how the character of Sara is drawn to skew precipitously downward in concerted contrivance, or the scene leading up to the shooting…these especially just didn’t make sense to me given the context of Christian faith (which is so paper thin here…that only Rudd’s in the moment breathing onstage makes it alive). And it is not enough to say that violence doesn’t make sense because it does. The playwright has stacked the deck to make sure that as everyman, Steve, has good cause to kill himself and his wife and everyone in his surroundings, regardless of whether he is angry at God or he just snapped. Except he is a Christian, and a serious one at that. He spouts off heavy spiritual montages in his urgency to convert or at least jangle the sensibilities of Karl and Sam toward faith. This incongruence between these speeches and his final actions echoes badly. It rings false. And that is an uber problem that the playwright never resolves in Steve’s characterization.
At the crux of the problem to me appears to be the playwright’s understanding of God, Christianity and the nature of the conversion that has happened to Steve and Sara. It is twisted and opaque to the point that the characters wander in the plot. The convolution is not in what they believe, but in that they were drawn incompletely to fit mechanisms in a contrivance. Da, da. Drum roll, “These are the wacked Christians.” It is OK to show wacked Christians. But for a writer to be pretentious, obvious and illogical about it is doing one’s craft a disservice. I certainly did not think that their faith as portrayed was at fault or insincere. In fact it was because of their sincerity of faith that I found the ending events written for “tragic” effect. It was a rush to create the spectacle of violence that led me to think that not only did the playwright not dig concepts of faith, spiritual conversion, the whole nine yards, he rendered it to fit his own notions. Unfortunately, the play suffers hugely, the characterizations are wobbly and illogical: Steve is a pathetic stereotype and his formerly timid wife, suddenly and within a month’s time, turns into a freewheeling, directed, courageous woman who renounces her vows and leaves Steve for Sam free of guilt, fear or self-reproach. This is rather a huge stretch, “Saaay what?”
Well, anyway, many in the audience should enjoy the characterizations because they easily fit into stereotypes. The obfuscation of faith, conversion and spiritual Christianity is so skewed and unclear, it will continue to promote the average audience member’s lack of understanding of Christianity/spiritual conversion, faith, agape love, etc. (See my opening sentence.) It is a boon for anyone who has a hatchet on for the Christian religion, is an agnostic or has had a few terrible run ins with hypocritical religionists and political religionists who are staunchly religious for purely monetary reasons.
Thank God for great direction. Thank God for brilliant performances by genius actors. That is GRACE, indeed! I so appreciated the efforts of Rudd, Asner, Shannon and Arrington who is lovely. She made real how she fell for Sam, even though I didn’t understand how she had the courage to leave Steve in a month’s time. Arrington, a magician, made me overlook that tremendous flaw in the play. The other actors’ logic and humanism made me over look the stumbling script. I knew Rudd, Asner and Shannon were absolutely great actors. I just didn’t know how great until I saw how they could take a play and characters that are ill conceived and create gems of life. Bravo to the cast and the director. You are truly masters of the craft! There is no praise great enough for the cast’s work and the director’s in how they transformed a lackluster, convulsed script into memorable theater. I will remember the phenomenal acting and direction. The play? Jesus H. Christ. It is forgettable. Do I sound confused? 😉
CAROLE DI TOSTI 