Denigration photos on Flickr

20 2

"-----------------------"

“----------------------”

-----------------------------------------------------------------

click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;

or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;

clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;

oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

……………………………………………………………………….

A story of Sicily: the Sicilian Gandhi (but he was not Sicilian ...).

This photographic story is connected, at least in part, with the previous one, whose link is represented by the nephew of the painter Robert Kitson, Miss Daphne Phelps: in life she was a psychiatric social worker (she collaborated with Anna Freud, daughter by Sigmund Freud), on the death of his uncle in 1948 he moved to Sicily to take care of Casa Cuseni, having inherited it: initially he wanted to sell it and then return to England, instead he ended up falling in love with Taormina and Sicily, deciding to stay there for the rest of his life. Daphne ran Casa Cuseni welcoming paying guests, there are many illustrious names of artists, writers, well-known personalities who have stayed there: Danilo Dolci was one of these guests, and it is precisely about him that I wish to speak. He was born in 1924 in Sesana (Trieste), after a somewhat eventful life, in 1952 he moved to Trappeto (between Palermo and Trapani), a country among the poorest and most disadvantaged in Italy: that same year the first of numerous fasts, going to bed and fasting in the bed of a child who died of malnutrition, a protest that will end only when the authorities undertake to build a sewer. Danilo Dolci continues with numerous initiatives, from the publication of a book ("Banditi a Partinico", which makes public opinion aware of the poor living conditions of western Sicily, to this book and many others will follow), to the "strike at reverses ”, when the workers went on strike, hundreds of unemployed began to work to reactivate an abandoned municipal road, an initiative that was then stopped by the police; Dolci also initiates an activity of denunciation of the mafia phenomenon and its relations with politics. There are numerous certificates of esteem and solidarity that he receives from important personalities from Italy and abroad, but despite this, for others Danilo Dolci is a dangerous subversive, to be hindered, denigrated, locked up in prison. Yet Dolci does not pose as a guru, boss, or teacher, his working method is based on the conviction that change is based on the involvement and direct participation of those concerned, his idea of progress enhances local culture and skills; he tries, working closely with the people and the most disadvantaged and oppressed groups of western Sicily, to free the dormant creativity in every person, calling this research "maieutic", a term coming from philosophy, precisely from Socratic maieutics: it is "the 'art of the midwife ", every educational act is to bring to light all the inner potentialities of the one who wants to learn, like a mother who wants to give birth to her own child from her womb, so no to notions imparted a priori, yes to help the student to bring their knowledge to light, using dialogue as a tool; however, Socratic maieutics is unidirectional, while in Danilo Dolci's "reciprocal maieutics", knowledge comes out of experience and its sharing, therefore it presupposes the reciprocity of communication. During meetings with farmers and fishermen, the idea was born to build the dam on the Jato River, which is important for the economic development of the area, but also to remove a powerful weapon in the hands of the mafia, an instrument of power which controlled the few available water resources; however the request for "water for all" will be heavily hindered, popular mobilizations and long fasts will be necessary to finally see the project realized: now the dam exists, and others have been built, thus modifying the lives of thousands of people, with the development of numerous companies and cooperatives. Among the many activities of Dolci, thanks to the contribution of international experts, the experience of the Mirto Educational Center, attended by hundreds of children, should be mentioned. Returning to Daphne Phelps and Casa Cuseni, here is a lithograph by Tono Zancanaro, dedicated to the birth of one of Danilo Dolci's daughters, but, among the most important, there is a correspondence between the pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russel and Daphne Phelps, in which the English thinker invited Robert Kitson's niece to participate in the gatherings of progressive intellectuals and literary and scientific personalities of the time, among them, besides Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Carlo Levi, there was Danilo Dolci, sociologist, educator, still recognized today as one of the most important figures of nonviolence worldwide.

post Scriptum:

- the images with Danilo Dolci come from the Casa Cuseni archive: they are cuttings from original periodicals, often full pages, from English newspapers, carefully preserved by Miss Daphne Phelp; these images were also taken by photographing some pages of James McNeish's book, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- the photographs taken in various countries of Sicily, are prior to the covid-19 pandemic;

- thanks to the surgeon colleague dr. Franco Spadaro and his kind wife, Mrs. Mimma Cundari, owners of Casa Cuseni (declared in 1998, Italian National Monument), for their hospitality and availability, having made the Danilo Dolci archive available to me.

Una storia di Sicilia: il Gandhi siciliano (ma siciliano non era…).

Questo racconto fotografico, è connesso, almeno in parte, con quello precedente, il cui anello di congiunzione è rappresentato dalla nipote del pittore Robert Kitson, la signorina Daphne Phelps: lei nella vita era una assistente sociale psichiatrica (lei collaborava con Anna Freud, figlia di Sigmund Freud), alla morte dello zio nel 1948 si trasferì in Sicilia per occuparsi di Casa Cuseni, avendola ereditata: inizialmente la voleva vendere per poi ritornarsene in Inghilterra, invece finì con l’innamorarsi di Taormina e della Sicilia, decidendo di restarvi per il resto della sua vita. Daphne gestiva Casa Cuseni accogliendo ospiti paganti, numerosi sono i nomi illustri di artisti, scrittori, note personalità che vi hanno alloggiato: Danilo Dolci è stato uno di questi ospiti, ed è proprio di lui che desidero parlare. Egli nasce nel 1924 a Sesana (Trieste), dopo una vita un po’ movimentata, nel 1952 si trasferisce a Trappeto (tra Palermo e Trapani), un paese tra i più poveri e disagiati d’Italia: quello stesso anno inizia il primo di numerosi digiuni, coricandosi e digiunando nel letto di un bimbo morto per denutrizione, protesta che terminerà solo quando le autorità si impegneranno a costruire una fogna. Danilo Dolci prosegue con numerose iniziative, dalla pubblicazione di un libro (“Banditi a Partinico”, che mette a conoscenza dell’opinione pubblica delle misere condizioni di vita della Sicilia occidentale, a questo libro poi ne seguiranno molti altri), allo “sciopero alla rovescia”, quando i lavoratori fecero sciopero, centinaia di disoccupati si misero a lavorare per riattivare una strada comunale abbandonata, iniziativa però poi fermata dalla polizia; Dolci avvia anche una attività di denuncia del fenomeno mafioso e dei suoi rapporti con la politica. Numerosi sono gli attestati di stima e solidarietà che egli riceve da importanti personalità provenienti dall’Italia e dall’estero, ma nonostante ciò per altri Danilo Dolci è un pericoloso sovversivo, da ostacolare, denigrare, chiudere in prigione. Eppure Dolci non si atteggia né a santone, capo, od un maestro, il suo metodo di lavoro è basato sulla convinzione che il cambiamento è basato sul coinvolgimento e diretta partecipazione degli interessati, la sua idea di progresso valorizza la cultura e le competenze locali; egli cerca, lavorando a stretto contatto con la gente e le fasce più disagiate ed oppresse della Sicilia occidentale, di liberare la creatività sopita in ogni persona, chiamando tale ricerca “maieutica”, termine proveniente dalla filosofia, precisamente dalla maieutica socratica: è “l’arte della levatrice”, ogni atto educativo è far venire alla luce tutte le potenzialità interiori di colui che vuole imparare, al pari di una madre che vuol far nascere la propria creatura dal suo grembo, quindi no a nozioni impartite a priori, si ad aiutare lo studente a portare alla luce la propria conoscenza, usando il dialogo come strumento; però, la maieutica socratica è unidirezionale, mentre nella “maieutica reciproca” di Danilo Dolci, la conoscenza viene fuori dall’esperienza e dalla sua condivisione, quindi presuppone la reciprocità della comunicazione. Nel corso di riunioni con contadini e pescatori, nasce l’idea di costruire la diga sul fiume Jato, importante per lo sviluppo economico della zona, ma anche togliere un’arma potente in mano alla mafia, che faceva del controllo delle poche risorse idriche disponibili uno strumento di potere, però la richiesta di “acqua per tutti” verrà pesantemente ostacolata, saranno necessarie le mobilitazioni popolari, lunghi digiuni, per vedere infine realizzato il progetto: ora la diga esiste, ed altre sono state poi realizzate, modificando in tal modo la vita di migliaia di persone, con lo svilupparsi di numerose aziende e cooperative. Da menzionare, tra le tante attività di Dolci, grazie al contributo di esperti internazionali, l’esperienza del Centro Educativo di Mirto, frequentato da centinaia di bambini. Ritornando a Daphne Phelps e Casa Cuseni, qui è presente una litografia di Tono Zancanaro, dedicata alla nascita di una delle figlie di Danilo Dolci, ma, cosa tra le più importanti, esiste un carteggio tra il filosofo pacifista Bertrand Russel e Daphne Phelps, nel quale il pensatore inglese invitava la nipote di Robert Kitson a partecipare ai raduni di intellettuali progressisti e personalità letterarie e scientifiche dell’epoca, tra di loro, oltre Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre e Carlo Levi, c’era Danilo Dolci, sociologo, educatore, ancora oggi riconosciuto tra le figure di massimo rilievo della nonviolenza a livello mondiale.

post scriptum:

- le immagini con Danilo Dolci provengono dall'archivio di Casa Cuseni: sono ritagli di giornali originali dell'epoca, spesso pagine intere, provenienti da quotidiani inglesi, accuratamente conservati dalla signorina Daphne Phelp; tali immagini sono state realizzate fotografando anche alcune pagine del libro di James McNeish, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- le fotografie realizzate in diversi paesi della Sicilia, sono antecedenti alla pandemia da covid-19;

- si ringrazia il collega chirurgo dott. Franco Spadaro e la sua gentile consorte, signora Mimma Cundari, proprietari di Casa Cuseni (dichiarata nel 1998, Monumento Nazionale Italiano), per la loro ospitalità e disponibilità, avendo messo a mia disposizione l'archivio relativo a Danilo Dolci.

Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery by Andrey Korchagin

32 8

Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (Russian: Кирилло-Белозерский монастырь), translated into English as White Lake [translation of the town name of Beloozero] St. Cyril's Monastery, used to be the largest monastery in Northern Russia. The monastery was consecrated to the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, for which cause it was sometimes referred to as the Dormition Monastery of St. Cyril. By the 20th century, the town of Kirillov had grown nearby.

The monastery was founded in 1397 on the bank of Lake Siverskoye, to the south from the town of Beloozero, in the present-day Vologda Oblast. Its founder, St. Cyril or Kirill of Beloozero, following the advice of his teacher, St. Sergius of Radonezh, first dug a cave here, then built a wooden Dormition chapel and a loghouse for other monks. Shortly before the creation of the monastery, the area fell under control of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

Being a member of the influential Velyaminov clan of boyars, Kirill relinquished the office of father superior of the greatest cloister in medieval Moscow—the Simonov monastery. His ties with the ruling elite were still close, however, as his letters to sons of Dmitri Donskoi clearly demonstrate. It seems that the Muscovite rulers regarded Kirill's monastery as an important strategic point, both for Northern trade and in their struggle with the Novgorod Republic. By 1427, when Kirill died, the prince of Belozersk-Mozhaisk (subject to the Grand Prince of Moscow) was the monastery's patron and the monastery was administratively subordinate to the Archbishop of Rostov. Under Hegumen Trifon (1434/5–1447/8), social and administrative reforms were undertaken, including the adoption of an Athonite cenobitic rule. A Byzantine-style secondary school was established at which translations of textbooks on grammar, semantics, geography, and history were used. A lasting legacy of the school were bibliographical studies, exemplified by the elder Yefrosin, and text critical studies, exemplified by Nil Sorsky (1433–1508). Nil also founded a skete on the Sora River near the monastery.

In the 16th century, the monastery was the second richest landowner in Russia, after its model, the Trinity Monastery near Moscow. Ivan the Terrible not only had his own cell in the cloister, but also planned to take monastic vows here. The cloister was also important as a political prison. Among the Muscovite politicians exiled to Kirillov were Vassian Patrikeyev, Tsar Simeon Bekbulatovich, Patriarch Nikon, and the prime minister Boris Morozov. In December 1612, the monastery was besieged by Polish-Lithuanian vagabonds, the Lisowczycy, who failed to capture it.

The vast walled area of the monastery comprises two separate priories with eleven churches, most of them dating to the 16th century. Of these, nine belong to the Uspensky (Dormition, the Orthodox equivalent of the Catholic holiday known as the Assumption of Mary) priory by the lake. The Dormition cathedral, erected by Rostov masters in 1497, was the largest monastery church built in Russia up to that date. Its 17th-century iconostasis features many ancient icons, arranged in five tiers above a silver heaven gate endowed by Tsar Alexis in 1645. A lot of valuable objects kept in the sacristy are personal gifts of the tsars who visited the monastery.

The smaller Ivanovsky priory is dedicated to St. John the Precursor, the patron saint of Ivan the Terrible. The oldest church of the priory was commissioned by Ivan's father, for the benefit of the "mendicant brethren", soon after his visit to the monastery in 1528. Subsequently, the monks incurred the tsar's displeasure by constructing St. Vladimir's Chapel over the grave of the exiled Prince Vorotynsky. Although the tsar chastised them for having broken canonical requirements, the chapel — which became the first family mausoleum in Russia — survived Ivan's reign and was expanded to its present form in 1623.

The monastery walls, 732 meters long and 7 meters thick, were constructed in 1654-80. They incorporate parts of the earlier citadel, which helped to withstand the Polish siege in 1612. At first construction works were supervised by Jean de Gron, a French military engineer known in Russian sources as Anton Granovsky. After the monastic authorities denigrated his Western-style design as alien to Russian traditions, Granovsky was replaced by a team of native masters. The fortress was the largest erected in Muscovy after the Time of Troubles; its walls feature numerous towers, each built to a particular design. The most remarkable are the Chasuble, the Tent-like, the Vologda, and the Smithy towers.

Dance Into The Light by peterphotographic

14 1

iPhone processed with Silver Efex Pro 2

British Summer Time In Hyde Park – an annual day out provided there is a decent headliner. Sunshine helps. And I’ll even put up with the overpriced but tasty drinks and food (lemon sole gorgons anyone ?). None of this could excuse one of the worst support slots by an established band I have ever witnessed – yes, that’s you Mike (and your Mechanics) – music for washing the car to in the dullest suburbs of Britain. Blondie – a hot party band of my teenage years – surpassed expectations. Of course we’d have all swapped the new album tracks for Presence and Denis but the opening One Way and a frenetic Rapture more than made up. Debbie ? 72 ? I’ll have some of whatever she is on… So the headliner Phil Collins. Easy to denigrate. Frighteningly decrepit due to recent medical shenanigans, his standing for the encore is the first song this tour that he’s not sat to perform. Mixed bag, not helped by a sound system that sometimes struggled with the conditions, but anything that was supported by the wonderful brass section flew. A surprisingly moving version of Follow You Follow Me underlined via the accompanying visuals how frail Phil Collins has become – and getting an emotional reaction to anything in the vastness of Hyde Park has to be considered an achievement for anyone.

Phil Collins, Hyde Park, London, UK

"Gases of (the planet) Uranus," presented here by special arrangement with NASA Free Use Photo Dump. You know I'm so tired of cheap jokes about Uranus. People, Uranus is one of our planets; it's YOUR planets. Why do we denigrate one of OUR planets? by St. Burke

3

We're just hurting ourselves by doing that. I wish people would remember: Uranus is Your Uranus.

18 3

archive of Casa Cuseni, an original newspaper article, preserved by Daphne Phelps, who hosted Danilo Dolci in Taormina.

archivio di Casa Cuseni, un articolo di giornale originale, conservato da Daphne Phelps, che ospitò a Taormina Danilo Dolci.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;

or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;

clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;

oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

……………………………………………………………………….

A story of Sicily: the Sicilian Gandhi (but he was not Sicilian ...).

This photographic story is connected, at least in part, with the previous one, whose link is represented by the nephew of the painter Robert Kitson, Miss Daphne Phelps: in life she was a psychiatric social worker (she collaborated with Anna Freud, daughter by Sigmund Freud), on the death of his uncle in 1948 he moved to Sicily to take care of Casa Cuseni, having inherited it: initially he wanted to sell it and then return to England, instead he ended up falling in love with Taormina and Sicily, deciding to stay there for the rest of his life. Daphne ran Casa Cuseni welcoming paying guests, there are many illustrious names of artists, writers, well-known personalities who have stayed there: Danilo Dolci was one of these guests, and it is precisely about him that I wish to speak. He was born in 1924 in Sesana (Trieste), after a somewhat eventful life, in 1952 he moved to Trappeto (between Palermo and Trapani), a country among the poorest and most disadvantaged in Italy: that same year the first of numerous fasts, going to bed and fasting in the bed of a child who died of malnutrition, a protest that will end only when the authorities undertake to build a sewer. Danilo Dolci continues with numerous initiatives, from the publication of a book ("Banditi a Partinico", which makes public opinion aware of the poor living conditions of western Sicily, to this book and many others will follow), to the "strike at reverses ”, when the workers went on strike, hundreds of unemployed began to work to reactivate an abandoned municipal road, an initiative that was then stopped by the police; Dolci also initiates an activity of denunciation of the mafia phenomenon and its relations with politics. There are numerous certificates of esteem and solidarity that he receives from important personalities from Italy and abroad, but despite this, for others Danilo Dolci is a dangerous subversive, to be hindered, denigrated, locked up in prison. Yet Dolci does not pose as a guru, boss, or teacher, his working method is based on the conviction that change is based on the involvement and direct participation of those concerned, his idea of progress enhances local culture and skills; he tries, working closely with the people and the most disadvantaged and oppressed groups of western Sicily, to free the dormant creativity in every person, calling this research "maieutic", a term coming from philosophy, precisely from Socratic maieutics: it is "the 'art of the midwife ", every educational act is to bring to light all the inner potentialities of the one who wants to learn, like a mother who wants to give birth to her own child from her womb, so no to notions imparted a priori, yes to help the student to bring their knowledge to light, using dialogue as a tool; however, Socratic maieutics is unidirectional, while in Danilo Dolci's "reciprocal maieutics", knowledge comes out of experience and its sharing, therefore it presupposes the reciprocity of communication. During meetings with farmers and fishermen, the idea was born to build the dam on the Jato River, which is important for the economic development of the area, but also to remove a powerful weapon in the hands of the mafia, an instrument of power which controlled the few available water resources; however the request for "water for all" will be heavily hindered, popular mobilizations and long fasts will be necessary to finally see the project realized: now the dam exists, and others have been built, thus modifying the lives of thousands of people, with the development of numerous companies and cooperatives. Among the many activities of Dolci, thanks to the contribution of international experts, the experience of the Mirto Educational Center, attended by hundreds of children, should be mentioned. Returning to Daphne Phelps and Casa Cuseni, here is a lithograph by Tono Zancanaro, dedicated to the birth of one of Danilo Dolci's daughters, but, among the most important, there is a correspondence between the pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russel and Daphne Phelps, in which the English thinker invited Robert Kitson's niece to participate in the gatherings of progressive intellectuals and literary and scientific personalities of the time, among them, besides Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Carlo Levi, there was Danilo Dolci, sociologist, educator, still recognized today as one of the most important figures of nonviolence worldwide.

post Scriptum:

- the images with Danilo Dolci come from the Casa Cuseni archive: they are cuttings from original periodicals, often full pages, from English newspapers, carefully preserved by Miss Daphne Phelp; these images were also taken by photographing some pages of James McNeish's book, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- the photographs taken in various countries of Sicily, are prior to the covid-19 pandemic;

- thanks to the surgeon colleague dr. Franco Spadaro and his kind wife, Mrs. Mimma Cundari, owners of Casa Cuseni (declared in 1998, Italian National Monument), for their hospitality and availability, having made the Danilo Dolci archive available to me.

Una storia di Sicilia: il Gandhi siciliano (ma siciliano non era…).

Questo racconto fotografico, è connesso, almeno in parte, con quello precedente, il cui anello di congiunzione è rappresentato dalla nipote del pittore Robert Kitson, la signorina Daphne Phelps: lei nella vita era una assistente sociale psichiatrica (lei collaborava con Anna Freud, figlia di Sigmund Freud), alla morte dello zio nel 1948 si trasferì in Sicilia per occuparsi di Casa Cuseni, avendola ereditata: inizialmente la voleva vendere per poi ritornarsene in Inghilterra, invece finì con l’innamorarsi di Taormina e della Sicilia, decidendo di restarvi per il resto della sua vita. Daphne gestiva Casa Cuseni accogliendo ospiti paganti, numerosi sono i nomi illustri di artisti, scrittori, note personalità che vi hanno alloggiato: Danilo Dolci è stato uno di questi ospiti, ed è proprio di lui che desidero parlare. Egli nasce nel 1924 a Sesana (Trieste), dopo una vita un po’ movimentata, nel 1952 si trasferisce a Trappeto (tra Palermo e Trapani), un paese tra i più poveri e disagiati d’Italia: quello stesso anno inizia il primo di numerosi digiuni, coricandosi e digiunando nel letto di un bimbo morto per denutrizione, protesta che terminerà solo quando le autorità si impegneranno a costruire una fogna. Danilo Dolci prosegue con numerose iniziative, dalla pubblicazione di un libro (“Banditi a Partinico”, che mette a conoscenza dell’opinione pubblica delle misere condizioni di vita della Sicilia occidentale, a questo libro poi ne seguiranno molti altri), allo “sciopero alla rovescia”, quando i lavoratori fecero sciopero, centinaia di disoccupati si misero a lavorare per riattivare una strada comunale abbandonata, iniziativa però poi fermata dalla polizia; Dolci avvia anche una attività di denuncia del fenomeno mafioso e dei suoi rapporti con la politica. Numerosi sono gli attestati di stima e solidarietà che egli riceve da importanti personalità provenienti dall’Italia e dall’estero, ma nonostante ciò per altri Danilo Dolci è un pericoloso sovversivo, da ostacolare, denigrare, chiudere in prigione. Eppure Dolci non si atteggia né a santone, capo, od un maestro, il suo metodo di lavoro è basato sulla convinzione che il cambiamento è basato sul coinvolgimento e diretta partecipazione degli interessati, la sua idea di progresso valorizza la cultura e le competenze locali; egli cerca, lavorando a stretto contatto con la gente e le fasce più disagiate ed oppresse della Sicilia occidentale, di liberare la creatività sopita in ogni persona, chiamando tale ricerca “maieutica”, termine proveniente dalla filosofia, precisamente dalla maieutica socratica: è “l’arte della levatrice”, ogni atto educativo è far venire alla luce tutte le potenzialità interiori di colui che vuole imparare, al pari di una madre che vuol far nascere la propria creatura dal suo grembo, quindi no a nozioni impartite a priori, si ad aiutare lo studente a portare alla luce la propria conoscenza, usando il dialogo come strumento; però, la maieutica socratica è unidirezionale, mentre nella “maieutica reciproca” di Danilo Dolci, la conoscenza viene fuori dall’esperienza e dalla sua condivisione, quindi presuppone la reciprocità della comunicazione. Nel corso di riunioni con contadini e pescatori, nasce l’idea di costruire la diga sul fiume Jato, importante per lo sviluppo economico della zona, ma anche togliere un’arma potente in mano alla mafia, che faceva del controllo delle poche risorse idriche disponibili uno strumento di potere, però la richiesta di “acqua per tutti” verrà pesantemente ostacolata, saranno necessarie le mobilitazioni popolari, lunghi digiuni, per vedere infine realizzato il progetto: ora la diga esiste, ed altre sono state poi realizzate, modificando in tal modo la vita di migliaia di persone, con lo svilupparsi di numerose aziende e cooperative. Da menzionare, tra le tante attività di Dolci, grazie al contributo di esperti internazionali, l’esperienza del Centro Educativo di Mirto, frequentato da centinaia di bambini. Ritornando a Daphne Phelps e Casa Cuseni, qui è presente una litografia di Tono Zancanaro, dedicata alla nascita di una delle figlie di Danilo Dolci, ma, cosa tra le più importanti, esiste un carteggio tra il filosofo pacifista Bertrand Russel e Daphne Phelps, nel quale il pensatore inglese invitava la nipote di Robert Kitson a partecipare ai raduni di intellettuali progressisti e personalità letterarie e scientifiche dell’epoca, tra di loro, oltre Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre e Carlo Levi, c’era Danilo Dolci, sociologo, educatore, ancora oggi riconosciuto tra le figure di massimo rilievo della nonviolenza a livello mondiale.

post scriptum:

- le immagini con Danilo Dolci provengono dall'archivio di Casa Cuseni: sono ritagli di giornali originali dell'epoca, spesso pagine intere, provenienti da quotidiani inglesi, accuratamente conservati dalla signorina Daphne Phelp; tali immagini sono state realizzate fotografando anche alcune pagine del libro di James McNeish, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- le fotografie realizzate in diversi paesi della Sicilia, sono antecedenti alla pandemia da covid-19;

- si ringrazia il collega chirurgo dott. Franco Spadaro e la sua gentile consorte, signora Mimma Cundari, proprietari di Casa Cuseni (dichiarata nel 1998, Monumento Nazionale Italiano), per la loro ospitalità e disponibilità, avendo messo a mia disposizione l'archivio relativo a Danilo Dolci.

Кирилло-Белозерский Монастырь Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery by Andrey Korchagin

22 10

Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery (Russian: Кирилло-Белозерский монастырь), translated into English as White Lake [translation of the town name of Beloozero] St. Cyril's Monastery, used to be the largest monastery in Northern Russia. The monastery was consecrated to the Feast of the Dormition of the Theotokos, for which cause it was sometimes referred to as the Dormition Monastery of St. Cyril. By the 20th century, the town of Kirillov had grown nearby.

The monastery was founded in 1397 on the bank of Lake Siverskoye, to the south from the town of Beloozero, in the present-day Vologda Oblast. Its founder, St. Cyril or Kirill of Beloozero, following the advice of his teacher, St. Sergius of Radonezh, first dug a cave here, then built a wooden Dormition chapel and a loghouse for other monks. Shortly before the creation of the monastery, the area fell under control of the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

Being a member of the influential Velyaminov clan of boyars, Kirill relinquished the office of father superior of the greatest cloister in medieval Moscow—the Simonov monastery. His ties with the ruling elite were still close, however, as his letters to sons of Dmitri Donskoi clearly demonstrate. It seems that the Muscovite rulers regarded Kirill's monastery as an important strategic point, both for Northern trade and in their struggle with the Novgorod Republic. By 1427, when Kirill died, the prince of Belozersk-Mozhaisk (subject to the Grand Prince of Moscow) was the monastery's patron and the monastery was administratively subordinate to the Archbishop of Rostov. Under Hegumen Trifon (1434/5–1447/8), social and administrative reforms were undertaken, including the adoption of an Athonite cenobitic rule. A Byzantine-style secondary school was established at which translations of textbooks on grammar, semantics, geography, and history were used. A lasting legacy of the school were bibliographical studies, exemplified by the elder Yefrosin, and text critical studies, exemplified by Nil Sorsky (1433–1508). Nil also founded a skete on the Sora River near the monastery.

In the 16th century, the monastery was the second richest landowner in Russia, after its model, the Trinity Monastery near Moscow. Ivan the Terrible not only had his own cell in the cloister, but also planned to take monastic vows here. The cloister was also important as a political prison. Among the Muscovite politicians exiled to Kirillov were Vassian Patrikeyev, Tsar Simeon Bekbulatovich, Patriarch Nikon, and the prime minister Boris Morozov. In December 1612, the monastery was besieged by Polish-Lithuanian vagabonds, the Lisowczycy, who failed to capture it.

The vast walled area of the monastery comprises two separate priories with eleven churches, most of them dating to the 16th century. Of these, nine belong to the Uspensky (Dormition, the Orthodox equivalent of the Catholic holiday known as the Assumption of Mary) priory by the lake. The Dormition cathedral, erected by Rostov masters in 1497, was the largest monastery church built in Russia up to that date. Its 17th-century iconostasis features many ancient icons, arranged in five tiers above a silver heaven gate endowed by Tsar Alexis in 1645. A lot of valuable objects kept in the sacristy are personal gifts of the tsars who visited the monastery.

The smaller Ivanovsky priory is dedicated to St. John the Precursor, the patron saint of Ivan the Terrible. The oldest church of the priory was commissioned by Ivan's father, for the benefit of the "mendicant brethren", soon after his visit to the monastery in 1528. Subsequently, the monks incurred the tsar's displeasure by constructing St. Vladimir's Chapel over the grave of the exiled Prince Vorotynsky. Although the tsar chastised them for having broken canonical requirements, the chapel — which became the first family mausoleum in Russia — survived Ivan's reign and was expanded to its present form in 1623.

The monastery walls, 732 meters long and 7 meters thick, were constructed in 1654-80. They incorporate parts of the earlier citadel, which helped to withstand the Polish siege in 1612. At first construction works were supervised by Jean de Gron, a French military engineer known in Russian sources as Anton Granovsky. After the monastic authorities denigrated his Western-style design as alien to Russian traditions, Granovsky was replaced by a team of native masters. The fortress was the largest erected in Muscovy after the Time of Troubles; its walls feature numerous towers, each built to a particular design. The most remarkable are the Chasuble, the Tent-like, the Vologda, and the Smithy towers.

LIFE moves on .. by Akash Bhattacharya

31 46

Shot @ Dhakuria Station Crossing,Kolkata,Feb08.

Monthly assignment for February 2008: A Cats Eye View

What it took: A quick picture to show the risk taken everyday by a common man/woman in his/her daily life...

A lady was washing her dishes ,when a speedy local train was passing by ...check out the distance from each other ...also see the people hanging out from the door ..when the hell will they become a bit more careful...!!

Thanks to this assignment ...when you get down at "A Cats Eye View" ...you see a new aspects of life all together.

Henry Miller - Life Moves On

Life moves on, whether we act as cowards or heroes. Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind.
Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

2nd Place:-The PCA - "Lifestyle" Contest - 12 Dec 2009.

www.flickr.com/groups/thepca/discuss/72157622910721376/

Xplored:-

Highest position: 99 on Tuesday, March 4, 2008

A Golden Rule by Sophie Shapiro

36 9

....Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy and strength, if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognise it as such…...

Words by Henry Miller, 1952

Painting using acrylics, inks and pigment on paper. Dedicated to P.C.

On October, 31st 2008 I made a decision to dedicate a painting to every person and animal that died in the sinking of RMS Titanic April, 15th 1912. This resulted in a great deal of research and becoming acquainted with many interesting people, who have supported my endeavours. I then realised that people had died during the building of this magnificent ship and decided to add them to my list. In total I painted 1,600 paintings.

Today, I share some of the paintings with you and will be uploading works from this collection to mark the 100th Anniversary of Titanic’s sinking which falls on April 15th 2012.

Photography by Pryere

♫ - Paintings and Music by Sophie Shapiro

.

Cuervo Catholic Church by Thomas W. Muther, Jr.

17 6

In Cuervo, New Mexico--a virtual ghost town. I had previously uploaded another photo from the remnants of the town here: www.flickr.com/photos/80014607@N05/44586257910/ . Both were taken on my way back home from my December Texas trip (2018).

The church is no longer functioning, but clearly someone put a new roof on the place not that long ago, so someone(s) still has an interest in the place.

Of course, I cannot know for sure, but it seems to me that the main body of the church was probably built by the community as opposed to professionally commissioned. The entry, however, was clearly built later and smacks of the involvement of professionals, though the stone immediately above the archway with the builder's names and date of construction, again looks to be more amateurish (by which I am not denigrating their efforts). It also would appear that these amateur builders were Hispanic, with Spanish/Castilian being their primary language (the Hispanic names and the grammatical error give it away).

Unfortunately, the place was locked and the windows covered so my curiosity about the interior is left wanting.

TAG-GAME - The top ten of the convention dolls that I don’t like by dragonella2010

10 13

This is the top ten of the dolls that you don’t like, I thought to make this tag-game contrary to that of jocelin to see how interesting it is to discover how different our tastes are in general, so it's not made to denigrate dolls or offend someone, but only to find out how different our tastes are.

17

the photograph of the nephew of the painter Robert Kitson, Miss Daphne Phelps (on the right, with light hair), who inherited Casa Cuseni, and hosted Danilo Dolci in Taormina (Casa Cuseni archive).

la fotografia della nipote del pittore Robert Kitson, la signorina Daphne Phelps (sulla destra, coi capelli chiari), che ereditò Casa Cuseni, ed ospitò a Taormina Danilo Dolci (archivio Casa Cuseni).

-----------------------------------------------------------------

click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;

or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;

clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;

oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

……………………………………………………………………….

A story of Sicily: the Sicilian Gandhi (but he was not Sicilian ...).

This photographic story is connected, at least in part, with the previous one, whose link is represented by the nephew of the painter Robert Kitson, Miss Daphne Phelps: in life she was a psychiatric social worker (she collaborated with Anna Freud, daughter by Sigmund Freud), on the death of his uncle in 1948 he moved to Sicily to take care of Casa Cuseni, having inherited it: initially he wanted to sell it and then return to England, instead he ended up falling in love with Taormina and Sicily, deciding to stay there for the rest of his life. Daphne ran Casa Cuseni welcoming paying guests, there are many illustrious names of artists, writers, well-known personalities who have stayed there: Danilo Dolci was one of these guests, and it is precisely about him that I wish to speak. He was born in 1924 in Sesana (Trieste), after a somewhat eventful life, in 1952 he moved to Trappeto (between Palermo and Trapani), a country among the poorest and most disadvantaged in Italy: that same year the first of numerous fasts, going to bed and fasting in the bed of a child who died of malnutrition, a protest that will end only when the authorities undertake to build a sewer. Danilo Dolci continues with numerous initiatives, from the publication of a book ("Banditi a Partinico", which makes public opinion aware of the poor living conditions of western Sicily, to this book and many others will follow), to the "strike at reverses ”, when the workers went on strike, hundreds of unemployed began to work to reactivate an abandoned municipal road, an initiative that was then stopped by the police; Dolci also initiates an activity of denunciation of the mafia phenomenon and its relations with politics. There are numerous certificates of esteem and solidarity that he receives from important personalities from Italy and abroad, but despite this, for others Danilo Dolci is a dangerous subversive, to be hindered, denigrated, locked up in prison. Yet Dolci does not pose as a guru, boss, or teacher, his working method is based on the conviction that change is based on the involvement and direct participation of those concerned, his idea of progress enhances local culture and skills; he tries, working closely with the people and the most disadvantaged and oppressed groups of western Sicily, to free the dormant creativity in every person, calling this research "maieutic", a term coming from philosophy, precisely from Socratic maieutics: it is "the 'art of the midwife ", every educational act is to bring to light all the inner potentialities of the one who wants to learn, like a mother who wants to give birth to her own child from her womb, so no to notions imparted a priori, yes to help the student to bring their knowledge to light, using dialogue as a tool; however, Socratic maieutics is unidirectional, while in Danilo Dolci's "reciprocal maieutics", knowledge comes out of experience and its sharing, therefore it presupposes the reciprocity of communication. During meetings with farmers and fishermen, the idea was born to build the dam on the Jato River, which is important for the economic development of the area, but also to remove a powerful weapon in the hands of the mafia, an instrument of power which controlled the few available water resources; however the request for "water for all" will be heavily hindered, popular mobilizations and long fasts will be necessary to finally see the project realized: now the dam exists, and others have been built, thus modifying the lives of thousands of people, with the development of numerous companies and cooperatives. Among the many activities of Dolci, thanks to the contribution of international experts, the experience of the Mirto Educational Center, attended by hundreds of children, should be mentioned. Returning to Daphne Phelps and Casa Cuseni, here is a lithograph by Tono Zancanaro, dedicated to the birth of one of Danilo Dolci's daughters, but, among the most important, there is a correspondence between the pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russel and Daphne Phelps, in which the English thinker invited Robert Kitson's niece to participate in the gatherings of progressive intellectuals and literary and scientific personalities of the time, among them, besides Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Carlo Levi, there was Danilo Dolci, sociologist, educator, still recognized today as one of the most important figures of nonviolence worldwide.

post Scriptum:

- the images with Danilo Dolci come from the Casa Cuseni archive: they are cuttings from original periodicals, often full pages, from English newspapers, carefully preserved by Miss Daphne Phelps; these images were also taken by photographing some pages of James McNeish's book, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- the photographs taken in various countries of Sicily, are prior to the covid-19 pandemic;

- thanks to the surgeon colleague dr. Franco Spadaro and his kind wife, Mrs. Mimma Cundari, owners of Casa Cuseni (declared in 1998, Italian National Monument), for their hospitality and availability, having made the Danilo Dolci archive available to me.

Una storia di Sicilia: il Gandhi siciliano (ma siciliano non era…).

Questo racconto fotografico, è connesso, almeno in parte, con quello precedente, il cui anello di congiunzione è rappresentato dalla nipote del pittore Robert Kitson, la signorina Daphne Phelps: lei nella vita era una assistente sociale psichiatrica (lei collaborava con Anna Freud, figlia di Sigmund Freud), alla morte dello zio nel 1948 si trasferì in Sicilia per occuparsi di Casa Cuseni, avendola ereditata: inizialmente la voleva vendere per poi ritornarsene in Inghilterra, invece finì con l’innamorarsi di Taormina e della Sicilia, decidendo di restarvi per il resto della sua vita. Daphne gestiva Casa Cuseni accogliendo ospiti paganti, numerosi sono i nomi illustri di artisti, scrittori, note personalità che vi hanno alloggiato: Danilo Dolci è stato uno di questi ospiti, ed è proprio di lui che desidero parlare. Egli nasce nel 1924 a Sesana (Trieste), dopo una vita un po’ movimentata, nel 1952 si trasferisce a Trappeto (tra Palermo e Trapani), un paese tra i più poveri e disagiati d’Italia: quello stesso anno inizia il primo di numerosi digiuni, coricandosi e digiunando nel letto di un bimbo morto per denutrizione, protesta che terminerà solo quando le autorità si impegneranno a costruire una fogna. Danilo Dolci prosegue con numerose iniziative, dalla pubblicazione di un libro (“Banditi a Partinico”, che mette a conoscenza dell’opinione pubblica delle misere condizioni di vita della Sicilia occidentale, a questo libro poi ne seguiranno molti altri), allo “sciopero alla rovescia”, quando i lavoratori fecero sciopero, centinaia di disoccupati si misero a lavorare per riattivare una strada comunale abbandonata, iniziativa però poi fermata dalla polizia; Dolci avvia anche una attività di denuncia del fenomeno mafioso e dei suoi rapporti con la politica. Numerosi sono gli attestati di stima e solidarietà che egli riceve da importanti personalità provenienti dall’Italia e dall’estero, ma nonostante ciò per altri Danilo Dolci è un pericoloso sovversivo, da ostacolare, denigrare, chiudere in prigione. Eppure Dolci non si atteggia né a santone, capo, od un maestro, il suo metodo di lavoro è basato sulla convinzione che il cambiamento è basato sul coinvolgimento e diretta partecipazione degli interessati, la sua idea di progresso valorizza la cultura e le competenze locali; egli cerca, lavorando a stretto contatto con la gente e le fasce più disagiate ed oppresse della Sicilia occidentale, di liberare la creatività sopita in ogni persona, chiamando tale ricerca “maieutica”, termine proveniente dalla filosofia, precisamente dalla maieutica socratica: è “l’arte della levatrice”, ogni atto educativo è far venire alla luce tutte le potenzialità interiori di colui che vuole imparare, al pari di una madre che vuol far nascere la propria creatura dal suo grembo, quindi no a nozioni impartite a priori, si ad aiutare lo studente a portare alla luce la propria conoscenza, usando il dialogo come strumento; però, la maieutica socratica è unidirezionale, mentre nella “maieutica reciproca” di Danilo Dolci, la conoscenza viene fuori dall’esperienza e dalla sua condivisione, quindi presuppone la reciprocità della comunicazione. Nel corso di riunioni con contadini e pescatori, nasce l’idea di costruire la diga sul fiume Jato, importante per lo sviluppo economico della zona, ma anche togliere un’arma potente in mano alla mafia, che faceva del controllo delle poche risorse idriche disponibili uno strumento di potere, però la richiesta di “acqua per tutti” verrà pesantemente ostacolata, saranno necessarie le mobilitazioni popolari, lunghi digiuni, per vedere infine realizzato il progetto: ora la diga esiste, ed altre sono state poi realizzate, modificando in tal modo la vita di migliaia di persone, con lo svilupparsi di numerose aziende e cooperative. Da menzionare, tra le tante attività di Dolci, grazie al contributo di esperti internazionali, l’esperienza del Centro Educativo di Mirto, frequentato da centinaia di bambini. Ritornando a Daphne Phelps e Casa Cuseni, qui è presente una litografia di Tono Zancanaro, dedicata alla nascita di una delle figlie di Danilo Dolci, ma, cosa tra le più importanti, esiste un carteggio tra il filosofo pacifista Bertrand Russel e Daphne Phelps, nel quale il pensatore inglese invitava la nipote di Robert Kitson a partecipare ai raduni di intellettuali progressisti e personalità letterarie e scientifiche dell’epoca, tra di loro, oltre Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre e Carlo Levi, c’era Danilo Dolci, sociologo, educatore, ancora oggi riconosciuto tra le figure di massimo rilievo della nonviolenza a livello mondiale.

post scriptum:

- le immagini con Danilo Dolci provengono dall'archivio di Casa Cuseni: sono ritagli di giornali originali dell'epoca, spesso pagine intere, provenienti da quotidiani inglesi, accuratamente conservati dalla signorina Daphne Phelps; tali immagini sono state realizzate fotografando anche alcune pagine del libro di James McNeish, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- le fotografie realizzate in diversi paesi della Sicilia, sono antecedenti alla pandemia da covid-19;

- si ringrazia il collega chirurgo dott. Franco Spadaro e la sua gentile consorte, signora Mimma Cundari, proprietari di Casa Cuseni (dichiarata nel 1998, Monumento Nazionale Italiano), per la loro ospitalità e disponibilità, avendo messo a mia disposizione l'archivio relativo a Danilo Dolci.

15

two books written by Danilo Dolci (Casa Cuseni archive).

due libri scritti da Danilo Dolci (archivio di Casa Cuseni).

-----------------------------------------------------------------

click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;

or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;

clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;

oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

……………………………………………………………………….

A story of Sicily: the Sicilian Gandhi (but he was not Sicilian ...).

This photographic story is connected, at least in part, with the previous one, whose link is represented by the nephew of the painter Robert Kitson, Miss Daphne Phelps: in life she was a psychiatric social worker (she collaborated with Anna Freud, daughter by Sigmund Freud), on the death of his uncle in 1948 he moved to Sicily to take care of Casa Cuseni, having inherited it: initially he wanted to sell it and then return to England, instead he ended up falling in love with Taormina and Sicily, deciding to stay there for the rest of his life. Daphne ran Casa Cuseni welcoming paying guests, there are many illustrious names of artists, writers, well-known personalities who have stayed there: Danilo Dolci was one of these guests, and it is precisely about him that I wish to speak. He was born in 1924 in Sesana (Trieste), after a somewhat eventful life, in 1952 he moved to Trappeto (between Palermo and Trapani), a country among the poorest and most disadvantaged in Italy: that same year the first of numerous fasts, going to bed and fasting in the bed of a child who died of malnutrition, a protest that will end only when the authorities undertake to build a sewer. Danilo Dolci continues with numerous initiatives, from the publication of a book ("Banditi a Partinico", which makes public opinion aware of the poor living conditions of western Sicily, to this book and many others will follow), to the "strike at reverses ”, when the workers went on strike, hundreds of unemployed began to work to reactivate an abandoned municipal road, an initiative that was then stopped by the police; Dolci also initiates an activity of denunciation of the mafia phenomenon and its relations with politics. There are numerous certificates of esteem and solidarity that he receives from important personalities from Italy and abroad, but despite this, for others Danilo Dolci is a dangerous subversive, to be hindered, denigrated, locked up in prison. Yet Dolci does not pose as a guru, boss, or teacher, his working method is based on the conviction that change is based on the involvement and direct participation of those concerned, his idea of progress enhances local culture and skills; he tries, working closely with the people and the most disadvantaged and oppressed groups of western Sicily, to free the dormant creativity in every person, calling this research "maieutic", a term coming from philosophy, precisely from Socratic maieutics: it is "the 'art of the midwife ", every educational act is to bring to light all the inner potentialities of the one who wants to learn, like a mother who wants to give birth to her own child from her womb, so no to notions imparted a priori, yes to help the student to bring their knowledge to light, using dialogue as a tool; however, Socratic maieutics is unidirectional, while in Danilo Dolci's "reciprocal maieutics", knowledge comes out of experience and its sharing, therefore it presupposes the reciprocity of communication. During meetings with farmers and fishermen, the idea was born to build the dam on the Jato River, which is important for the economic development of the area, but also to remove a powerful weapon in the hands of the mafia, an instrument of power which controlled the few available water resources; however the request for "water for all" will be heavily hindered, popular mobilizations and long fasts will be necessary to finally see the project realized: now the dam exists, and others have been built, thus modifying the lives of thousands of people, with the development of numerous companies and cooperatives. Among the many activities of Dolci, thanks to the contribution of international experts, the experience of the Mirto Educational Center, attended by hundreds of children, should be mentioned. Returning to Daphne Phelps and Casa Cuseni, here is a lithograph by Tono Zancanaro, dedicated to the birth of one of Danilo Dolci's daughters, but, among the most important, there is a correspondence between the pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russel and Daphne Phelps, in which the English thinker invited Robert Kitson's niece to participate in the gatherings of progressive intellectuals and literary and scientific personalities of the time, among them, besides Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Carlo Levi, there was Danilo Dolci, sociologist, educator, still recognized today as one of the most important figures of nonviolence worldwide.

post Scriptum:

- the images with Danilo Dolci come from the Casa Cuseni archive: they are cuttings from original periodicals, often full pages, from English newspapers, carefully preserved by Miss Daphne Phelp; these images were also taken by photographing some pages of James McNeish's book, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- the photographs taken in various countries of Sicily, are prior to the covid-19 pandemic;

- thanks to the surgeon colleague dr. Franco Spadaro and his kind wife, Mrs. Mimma Cundari, owners of Casa Cuseni (declared in 1998, Italian National Monument), for their hospitality and availability, having made the Danilo Dolci archive available to me.

Una storia di Sicilia: il Gandhi siciliano (ma siciliano non era…).

Questo racconto fotografico, è connesso, almeno in parte, con quello precedente, il cui anello di congiunzione è rappresentato dalla nipote del pittore Robert Kitson, la signorina Daphne Phelps: lei nella vita era una assistente sociale psichiatrica (lei collaborava con Anna Freud, figlia di Sigmund Freud), alla morte dello zio nel 1948 si trasferì in Sicilia per occuparsi di Casa Cuseni, avendola ereditata: inizialmente la voleva vendere per poi ritornarsene in Inghilterra, invece finì con l’innamorarsi di Taormina e della Sicilia, decidendo di restarvi per il resto della sua vita. Daphne gestiva Casa Cuseni accogliendo ospiti paganti, numerosi sono i nomi illustri di artisti, scrittori, note personalità che vi hanno alloggiato: Danilo Dolci è stato uno di questi ospiti, ed è proprio di lui che desidero parlare. Egli nasce nel 1924 a Sesana (Trieste), dopo una vita un po’ movimentata, nel 1952 si trasferisce a Trappeto (tra Palermo e Trapani), un paese tra i più poveri e disagiati d’Italia: quello stesso anno inizia il primo di numerosi digiuni, coricandosi e digiunando nel letto di un bimbo morto per denutrizione, protesta che terminerà solo quando le autorità si impegneranno a costruire una fogna. Danilo Dolci prosegue con numerose iniziative, dalla pubblicazione di un libro (“Banditi a Partinico”, che mette a conoscenza dell’opinione pubblica delle misere condizioni di vita della Sicilia occidentale, a questo libro poi ne seguiranno molti altri), allo “sciopero alla rovescia”, quando i lavoratori fecero sciopero, centinaia di disoccupati si misero a lavorare per riattivare una strada comunale abbandonata, iniziativa però poi fermata dalla polizia; Dolci avvia anche una attività di denuncia del fenomeno mafioso e dei suoi rapporti con la politica. Numerosi sono gli attestati di stima e solidarietà che egli riceve da importanti personalità provenienti dall’Italia e dall’estero, ma nonostante ciò per altri Danilo Dolci è un pericoloso sovversivo, da ostacolare, denigrare, chiudere in prigione. Eppure Dolci non si atteggia né a santone, capo, od un maestro, il suo metodo di lavoro è basato sulla convinzione che il cambiamento è basato sul coinvolgimento e diretta partecipazione degli interessati, la sua idea di progresso valorizza la cultura e le competenze locali; egli cerca, lavorando a stretto contatto con la gente e le fasce più disagiate ed oppresse della Sicilia occidentale, di liberare la creatività sopita in ogni persona, chiamando tale ricerca “maieutica”, termine proveniente dalla filosofia, precisamente dalla maieutica socratica: è “l’arte della levatrice”, ogni atto educativo è far venire alla luce tutte le potenzialità interiori di colui che vuole imparare, al pari di una madre che vuol far nascere la propria creatura dal suo grembo, quindi no a nozioni impartite a priori, si ad aiutare lo studente a portare alla luce la propria conoscenza, usando il dialogo come strumento; però, la maieutica socratica è unidirezionale, mentre nella “maieutica reciproca” di Danilo Dolci, la conoscenza viene fuori dall’esperienza e dalla sua condivisione, quindi presuppone la reciprocità della comunicazione. Nel corso di riunioni con contadini e pescatori, nasce l’idea di costruire la diga sul fiume Jato, importante per lo sviluppo economico della zona, ma anche togliere un’arma potente in mano alla mafia, che faceva del controllo delle poche risorse idriche disponibili uno strumento di potere, però la richiesta di “acqua per tutti” verrà pesantemente ostacolata, saranno necessarie le mobilitazioni popolari, lunghi digiuni, per vedere infine realizzato il progetto: ora la diga esiste, ed altre sono state poi realizzate, modificando in tal modo la vita di migliaia di persone, con lo svilupparsi di numerose aziende e cooperative. Da menzionare, tra le tante attività di Dolci, grazie al contributo di esperti internazionali, l’esperienza del Centro Educativo di Mirto, frequentato da centinaia di bambini. Ritornando a Daphne Phelps e Casa Cuseni, qui è presente una litografia di Tono Zancanaro, dedicata alla nascita di una delle figlie di Danilo Dolci, ma, cosa tra le più importanti, esiste un carteggio tra il filosofo pacifista Bertrand Russel e Daphne Phelps, nel quale il pensatore inglese invitava la nipote di Robert Kitson a partecipare ai raduni di intellettuali progressisti e personalità letterarie e scientifiche dell’epoca, tra di loro, oltre Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre e Carlo Levi, c’era Danilo Dolci, sociologo, educatore, ancora oggi riconosciuto tra le figure di massimo rilievo della nonviolenza a livello mondiale.

post scriptum:

- le immagini con Danilo Dolci provengono dall'archivio di Casa Cuseni: sono ritagli di giornali originali dell'epoca, spesso pagine intere, provenienti da quotidiani inglesi, accuratamente conservati dalla signorina Daphne Phelp; tali immagini sono state realizzate fotografando anche alcune pagine del libro di James McNeish, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- le fotografie realizzate in diversi paesi della Sicilia, sono antecedenti alla pandemia da covid-19;

- si ringrazia il collega chirurgo dott. Franco Spadaro e la sua gentile consorte, signora Mimma Cundari, proprietari di Casa Cuseni (dichiarata nel 1998, Monumento Nazionale Italiano), per la loro ospitalità e disponibilità, avendo messo a mia disposizione l'archivio relativo a Danilo Dolci.

Street sounds by michael brooking

9 16

I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down'

Bob Newhart

Wien, 1. Bezirk (historic wells in downtown Vienna), Wiener Staatsoper, Ópera Estatal de Viena, L'opéra d’État de Vienne, Vienna State Opera, Opera Wiedeńska (Opernring/Operngasse) by Alfred Lex

21 12

Right and left of the house are the two old wells by Josef Gasser. They represent opposing worlds. On your left, it depens on your position: "music, dance, joy, levity", right: "Loreley, sadness, love, revenge". This one stands for music...

History of the Vienna State Opera

132 years house on the Ring

(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901

About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.

The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .

State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903

The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.

1869 - 1955

On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.

However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.

In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.

Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.

Technique: Lithography

from www.aeiou.at

In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.

staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)

The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.

The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.

But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.

staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)

Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.

Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher

As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.

staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)

State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak

1955 to 1992

The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:

staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)

Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.

Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher

After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.

It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.

The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)

After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.

His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.

State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA

Image : Vienna State Opera

In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).

Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).

At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.

more...

Directors since 1869

Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870

Opening 5/25/1869

Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875

Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880

Director College:

Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and

Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880

Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897

Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907

Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911

Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918

Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919

Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924

Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929

Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934

Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936

Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940

Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941

Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941

Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943

Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945

Alfred Jerger,

State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945

Franz Salmhofer,

State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955

Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956

Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962

Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963

Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964

Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968

Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972

Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976

Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982

Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984

Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986

Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991

Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992

Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010

Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010

Opera world premieres

Abbreviations:

Od = the Odeon

Ron = Ronacher

TW = the Theater an der Wien

1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba

1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede

1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade

15.12. Brüller Bianca

1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold

21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin

1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria

1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana

4:10 . Hager Marffa

19.11. Goldmark Merlin

1887 03:04. Harold pepper

1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King

4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth

1891 19:02. Mader Refugees

1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman

16.02. Massenet Werther

19.11. Bulk Signor Formica

1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam

1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth

1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war

1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once

1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon

1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor

1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale

1910 12:04. The musician Bittner

18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen

1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake

1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite

1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess

1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame

1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)

1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise

1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten

1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School

1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin

1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens

1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum

27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna

1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae

1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless

1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta

08.12. Bittner The violet

1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream

1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement

17.04. Frank The strange woman

18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein

1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko

1939 02:02. Will King ballad

1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk

1956 17.06. Martin The Storm

1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady

1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue

1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)

1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)

1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)

26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo

2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld

2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree

2010 28.02. Reimann Medea

2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton

www.wien-vienna.at/index.php?ID=484

A Serious Woman by Laurette McGovern

12 8

As you all know by now, I try not to take myself too seriously. However, I am very serious about one thing:

When dressed en femme, always do your best!

If you treat this as a joke; if you in some way see this as a way to denigrate women; if you do not do your best to respect womanhood when dressed en femme, then I want nothing to do with you.

Understand, we have all different abilities. Some of us are innately better at this than others, though the desire to appear feminine may be exactly the same. Those are the cards nature dealt us.

My problem is with those who take the opportunity, by appearing as clowns or worse, to belittle women. You are not my friends, and I do not want to be associated with you.

'Many ways to garden by Su_G': tablewear mockup by Su G

14 5

'Many ways to garden by Su_G' in a tablewear setting (placemats & dinner napkins) mockup (c/o Roostery)

TECHNICAL NOTE: the mockup also shows the expected difference in color between the same design printed on Eco Canvas (polyester, used for the placemats) and Cotton Sateen (used for the napkins). I was a bit surprised to see so much difference even in the neutral background.

Found grass seedheads [Common name 'Kangaroo Grass'; scientific names: Themeda triandra, Themeda australis], scanned & colored. My entry in Spoonflower's Gardening Design Challenge.

'Kangaroo Grass': representing Australian Indigenous gardening - for long unrecognised. As people moved around country they scattered or drilled-in seeds harvested from other places. European settlers came and saw the results - but did not recognise them as a product of 'gardening' as there were no obvious fences, rows of plants, or irrigation structures... and the first peoples were denigrated as being 'without agriculture'. See Rethinking Indigenous Australia's agricultural past - from the ABC, Australia's national broadcaster, for more information.

See 'Many ways to garden (Native grass on bone) by Su_G' as fabric @ Spoonflower

See 'Many ways to garden (Native grass on bone) by Su_G' as placemats and other soft furnishing @ Roostery (Spoonflower's home decor arm)

[Many ways to garden by Su_G_tablewear_mockup]

Changes. by richard_artedigital

12 5

PLEASE, no awards in comments and no invitations to any group. Thank you! (Read profile) www.flickr.com/people/140640128@N05/

Here's the thing folks:

Due to some recent feedback and unpleasant experiences on this site, I have decided to change the privacy of some content.

So far, I have seen cases of stolen photos (Not me, yet.) but to other photographers. Also, there are these dubious, most likely fake profiles and really disgusting comments in their own streams and favorites related to pedophilia. Thank goodness for the online translators, so I have been able to figure out what they' were up to. Even when I don't master some languages yet. For such reasons, I won't accept "Friends & Family" from people with certain suspicious content. I will remain status with some current contacts who have proved a decent treatment through their comments and messages.

Unfortunately, to this day, for most users artistic nudity or implied nudity equals sex and porn. I am not judging if some models earn an extra income thanks to adult industry. It's their business. Good for them! But the people who have posed for me are, above of all close friends, who don't want their pictures mixed with porn or treated in comments in a very crude way. Needless to say that I won't hesitate to block people with such behaviour, or with any other content denigrating other women or their own, with such abhorrent language.

And one more thing, for goodness' sake NO AWARDS IN COMMENTS AND NO INVITATIONS TO ANY GROUP! Thank you! (Some people still don't read profiles and warnings!)

Thanks for your attention.

Have a safe and great weekend everyone!

Richard.

15

archive of Casa Cuseni, an original newspaper article, preserved by Daphne Phelps, who hosted Danilo Dolci in Taormina.

archivio di Casa Cuseni, un articolo di giornale originale, conservato da Daphne Phelps, che ospitò a Taormina Danilo Dolci.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;

or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;

clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;

oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

……………………………………………………………………….

A story of Sicily: the Sicilian Gandhi (but he was not Sicilian ...).

This photographic story is connected, at least in part, with the previous one, whose link is represented by the nephew of the painter Robert Kitson, Miss Daphne Phelps: in life she was a psychiatric social worker (she collaborated with Anna Freud, daughter by Sigmund Freud), on the death of his uncle in 1948 he moved to Sicily to take care of Casa Cuseni, having inherited it: initially he wanted to sell it and then return to England, instead he ended up falling in love with Taormina and Sicily, deciding to stay there for the rest of his life. Daphne ran Casa Cuseni welcoming paying guests, there are many illustrious names of artists, writers, well-known personalities who have stayed there: Danilo Dolci was one of these guests, and it is precisely about him that I wish to speak. He was born in 1924 in Sesana (Trieste), after a somewhat eventful life, in 1952 he moved to Trappeto (between Palermo and Trapani), a country among the poorest and most disadvantaged in Italy: that same year the first of numerous fasts, going to bed and fasting in the bed of a child who died of malnutrition, a protest that will end only when the authorities undertake to build a sewer. Danilo Dolci continues with numerous initiatives, from the publication of a book ("Banditi a Partinico", which makes public opinion aware of the poor living conditions of western Sicily, to this book and many others will follow), to the "strike at reverses ”, when the workers went on strike, hundreds of unemployed began to work to reactivate an abandoned municipal road, an initiative that was then stopped by the police; Dolci also initiates an activity of denunciation of the mafia phenomenon and its relations with politics. There are numerous certificates of esteem and solidarity that he receives from important personalities from Italy and abroad, but despite this, for others Danilo Dolci is a dangerous subversive, to be hindered, denigrated, locked up in prison. Yet Dolci does not pose as a guru, boss, or teacher, his working method is based on the conviction that change is based on the involvement and direct participation of those concerned, his idea of progress enhances local culture and skills; he tries, working closely with the people and the most disadvantaged and oppressed groups of western Sicily, to free the dormant creativity in every person, calling this research "maieutic", a term coming from philosophy, precisely from Socratic maieutics: it is "the 'art of the midwife ", every educational act is to bring to light all the inner potentialities of the one who wants to learn, like a mother who wants to give birth to her own child from her womb, so no to notions imparted a priori, yes to help the student to bring their knowledge to light, using dialogue as a tool; however, Socratic maieutics is unidirectional, while in Danilo Dolci's "reciprocal maieutics", knowledge comes out of experience and its sharing, therefore it presupposes the reciprocity of communication. During meetings with farmers and fishermen, the idea was born to build the dam on the Jato River, which is important for the economic development of the area, but also to remove a powerful weapon in the hands of the mafia, an instrument of power which controlled the few available water resources; however the request for "water for all" will be heavily hindered, popular mobilizations and long fasts will be necessary to finally see the project realized: now the dam exists, and others have been built, thus modifying the lives of thousands of people, with the development of numerous companies and cooperatives. Among the many activities of Dolci, thanks to the contribution of international experts, the experience of the Mirto Educational Center, attended by hundreds of children, should be mentioned. Returning to Daphne Phelps and Casa Cuseni, here is a lithograph by Tono Zancanaro, dedicated to the birth of one of Danilo Dolci's daughters, but, among the most important, there is a correspondence between the pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russel and Daphne Phelps, in which the English thinker invited Robert Kitson's niece to participate in the gatherings of progressive intellectuals and literary and scientific personalities of the time, among them, besides Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Carlo Levi, there was Danilo Dolci, sociologist, educator, still recognized today as one of the most important figures of nonviolence worldwide.

post Scriptum:

- the images with Danilo Dolci come from the Casa Cuseni archive: they are cuttings from original periodicals, often full pages, from English newspapers, carefully preserved by Miss Daphne Phelps; these images were also taken by photographing some pages of James McNeish's book, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- the photographs taken in various countries of Sicily, are prior to the covid-19 pandemic;

- thanks to the surgeon colleague dr. Franco Spadaro and his kind wife, Mrs. Mimma Cundari, owners of Casa Cuseni (declared in 1998, Italian National Monument), for their hospitality and availability, having made the Danilo Dolci archive available to me.

Una storia di Sicilia: il Gandhi siciliano (ma siciliano non era…).

Questo racconto fotografico, è connesso, almeno in parte, con quello precedente, il cui anello di congiunzione è rappresentato dalla nipote del pittore Robert Kitson, la signorina Daphne Phelps: lei nella vita era una assistente sociale psichiatrica (lei collaborava con Anna Freud, figlia di Sigmund Freud), alla morte dello zio nel 1948 si trasferì in Sicilia per occuparsi di Casa Cuseni, avendola ereditata: inizialmente la voleva vendere per poi ritornarsene in Inghilterra, invece finì con l’innamorarsi di Taormina e della Sicilia, decidendo di restarvi per il resto della sua vita. Daphne gestiva Casa Cuseni accogliendo ospiti paganti, numerosi sono i nomi illustri di artisti, scrittori, note personalità che vi hanno alloggiato: Danilo Dolci è stato uno di questi ospiti, ed è proprio di lui che desidero parlare. Egli nasce nel 1924 a Sesana (Trieste), dopo una vita un po’ movimentata, nel 1952 si trasferisce a Trappeto (tra Palermo e Trapani), un paese tra i più poveri e disagiati d’Italia: quello stesso anno inizia il primo di numerosi digiuni, coricandosi e digiunando nel letto di un bimbo morto per denutrizione, protesta che terminerà solo quando le autorità si impegneranno a costruire una fogna. Danilo Dolci prosegue con numerose iniziative, dalla pubblicazione di un libro (“Banditi a Partinico”, che mette a conoscenza dell’opinione pubblica delle misere condizioni di vita della Sicilia occidentale, a questo libro poi ne seguiranno molti altri), allo “sciopero alla rovescia”, quando i lavoratori fecero sciopero, centinaia di disoccupati si misero a lavorare per riattivare una strada comunale abbandonata, iniziativa però poi fermata dalla polizia; Dolci avvia anche una attività di denuncia del fenomeno mafioso e dei suoi rapporti con la politica. Numerosi sono gli attestati di stima e solidarietà che egli riceve da importanti personalità provenienti dall’Italia e dall’estero, ma nonostante ciò per altri Danilo Dolci è un pericoloso sovversivo, da ostacolare, denigrare, chiudere in prigione. Eppure Dolci non si atteggia né a santone, capo, od un maestro, il suo metodo di lavoro è basato sulla convinzione che il cambiamento è basato sul coinvolgimento e diretta partecipazione degli interessati, la sua idea di progresso valorizza la cultura e le competenze locali; egli cerca, lavorando a stretto contatto con la gente e le fasce più disagiate ed oppresse della Sicilia occidentale, di liberare la creatività sopita in ogni persona, chiamando tale ricerca “maieutica”, termine proveniente dalla filosofia, precisamente dalla maieutica socratica: è “l’arte della levatrice”, ogni atto educativo è far venire alla luce tutte le potenzialità interiori di colui che vuole imparare, al pari di una madre che vuol far nascere la propria creatura dal suo grembo, quindi no a nozioni impartite a priori, si ad aiutare lo studente a portare alla luce la propria conoscenza, usando il dialogo come strumento; però, la maieutica socratica è unidirezionale, mentre nella “maieutica reciproca” di Danilo Dolci, la conoscenza viene fuori dall’esperienza e dalla sua condivisione, quindi presuppone la reciprocità della comunicazione. Nel corso di riunioni con contadini e pescatori, nasce l’idea di costruire la diga sul fiume Jato, importante per lo sviluppo economico della zona, ma anche togliere un’arma potente in mano alla mafia, che faceva del controllo delle poche risorse idriche disponibili uno strumento di potere, però la richiesta di “acqua per tutti” verrà pesantemente ostacolata, saranno necessarie le mobilitazioni popolari, lunghi digiuni, per vedere infine realizzato il progetto: ora la diga esiste, ed altre sono state poi realizzate, modificando in tal modo la vita di migliaia di persone, con lo svilupparsi di numerose aziende e cooperative. Da menzionare, tra le tante attività di Dolci, grazie al contributo di esperti internazionali, l’esperienza del Centro Educativo di Mirto, frequentato da centinaia di bambini. Ritornando a Daphne Phelps e Casa Cuseni, qui è presente una litografia di Tono Zancanaro, dedicata alla nascita di una delle figlie di Danilo Dolci, ma, cosa tra le più importanti, esiste un carteggio tra il filosofo pacifista Bertrand Russel e Daphne Phelps, nel quale il pensatore inglese invitava la nipote di Robert Kitson a partecipare ai raduni di intellettuali progressisti e personalità letterarie e scientifiche dell’epoca, tra di loro, oltre Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre e Carlo Levi, c’era Danilo Dolci, sociologo, educatore, ancora oggi riconosciuto tra le figure di massimo rilievo della nonviolenza a livello mondiale.

post scriptum:

- le immagini con Danilo Dolci provengono dall'archivio di Casa Cuseni: sono ritagli di giornali originali dell'epoca, spesso pagine intere, provenienti da quotidiani inglesi, accuratamente conservati dalla signorina Daphne Phelps; tali immagini sono state realizzate fotografando anche alcune pagine del libro di James McNeish, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- le fotografie realizzate in diversi paesi della Sicilia, sono antecedenti alla pandemia da covid-19;

- si ringrazia il collega chirurgo dott. Franco Spadaro e la sua gentile consorte, signora Mimma Cundari, proprietari di Casa Cuseni (dichiarata nel 1998, Monumento Nazionale Italiano), per la loro ospitalità e disponibilità, avendo messo a mia disposizione l'archivio relativo a Danilo Dolci.

SAINT-TROPEZ by steve lorillere

14 57

Steve Lorillere | Saint-Tropez Photo | Twitter | facebook

LES VOILES DE SAINT-TROPEZ by steve lorillere

22 10

Steve Lorillere | Saint-Tropez Photo | Twitter | facebook

Wien, 1. Bezirk, Wiener Staatsoper, Ópera Estatal de Viena, L'opéra d’État de Vienne, Vienna State Opera, Opera Wiedeńska (Opernring/Operngasse/Kärntnerstraße) by Josef Lex (El buen soldado Švejk)

18 27

History of the Vienna State Opera

132 years house on the Ring

(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901

About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.

The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .

State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903

The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.

1869 - 1955

On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.

However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.

In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.

Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.

Technique: Lithography

from www.aeiou.at

In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.

staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)

The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.

The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.

But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.

staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)

Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.

Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher

As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.

staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)

State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak

1955 to 1992

The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:

staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)

Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.

Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / bildarchiv austria / ÖGZ / Hilscher

After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.

It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.

The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)

After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.

His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.

State Opera - © Oliver Thomann - FOTOLIA

Image : Vienna State Opera

In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).

Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).

At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.

more...

Directors since 1869

Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870

Opening 5/25/1869

Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875

Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880

Director College:

Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and

Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880

Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897

Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907

Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911

Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918

Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919

Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924

Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929

Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934

Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936

Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940

Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941

Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941

Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943

Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945

Alfred Jerger,

State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945

Franz Salmhofer,

State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955

Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956

Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962

Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963

Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964

Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968

Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972

Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976

Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982

Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984

Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986

Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991

Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992

Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010

Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010

Opera world premieres

Abbreviations:

Od = the Odeon

Ron = Ronacher

TW = the Theater an der Wien

1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba

1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede

1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade

15.12. Brüller Bianca

1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold

21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin

1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria

1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana

4:10 . Hager Marffa

19.11. Goldmark Merlin

1887 03:04. Harold pepper

1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King

4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth

1891 19:02. Mader Refugees

1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman

16.02. Massenet Werther

19.11. Bulk Signor Formica

1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam

1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth

1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war

1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once

1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon

1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor

1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale

1910 12:04. The musician Bittner

18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen

1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake

1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite

1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess

1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame

1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)

1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise

1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten

1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School

1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin

1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens

1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum

27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna

1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae

1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless

1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta

08.12. Bittner The violet

1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream

1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement

17.04. Frank The strange woman

18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein

1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko

1939 02:02. Will King ballad

1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk

1956 17.06. Martin The Storm

1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady

1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue

1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)

1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)

1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)

26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo

2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld

2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree

2010 28.02. Reimann Medea

2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton

www.wien-vienna.at/index.php?ID=484

Jonah Hex: Antebellum (A DCU One-Shot) by Gallisuchus

10 8

The town’s name was Penance. A truly pitiful thing, strewn across the most desolate region of what had come to be called the Red Desert, in the land not yet the state of Wyoming. An unusual place. Unforgiving like you could not fathom, though tranquil, at times, to such a degree that even the most sorrowful being should forget all else that this country had endured. I know as much.

It was explained to me, during my sojourn therein, that ownership of all twelve buildings had exchanged hands as many times as months had gone by since its completion. No one wanted it. Penance was no destination, merely a place to rest one’s head on the way to one. So, in truth, everyone was a stranger in Penance. The strangest of them, in this humble narrator’s opinion, was to arrive the final day of October, in the year of our Lord, 1871.

He was astride a grey horse. He wore a grey coat—yes, that grey coat—over his shoulders in such a way, it seemed the weight of gold. His grey hat, as incriminating as the coat, did not hide his face as well as, I suspect, any soul would have preferred it to.

Leaving his mare on the stoop without a rope to hold her, he wordlessly joined our congregation in Penance’s saloon. Before his boots passed the swinging doors, we each of us had seen only the beast on which our new companion rode. The second, that being a grey wolf, with a head as large as a cauldron, plodded along at the man’s spurs. It sank mildly to its belly at the threshold, still managing to give us all a good fright. Eli gripped my hand where it lay on the table.

And yes, as this type of story goes, the drab outsider walked to the unoccupied bar, nary a glance at a single one of us to repay our gawking. Better that way, as I do believe a child or another woman would have fainted to be caught by his right eye, yellowed and lidless as it was. A gruesome window in the cheek of the same side displayed his teeth. His worn cuffs rested upon the counter, ever so lightly. Penance’s temporary bartender was no braver than any one of us, but he approached the patron anyway.

The bartender extended an ordinary “friend” to the disfigured man, where the word may have easily been taken for a question rather than a greeting. The stranger’s response was no less ambiguous, as the slight tip of his hat looked to be indicative of the man’s goodwill, as much as it did his weariness. Whatever the case, I could sense the room had thankfully begun to breathe again.

“I hope that you, sir, can sympathize- that is, understand our situation here, and that I can afford you only one drink,” our bartender decreed, in a tone delicate like cobwebs.

“I’ll thank you kindly for water. Any that ain’t bein’ drunk.”

The bartender was unsettled by this. “Pardon me for saying, but a man who found his way here with not but a horse and the… clothes on his back, might could do with something stronger.”

“Water,” the man reassured him, “will be jist dandy.”

He was given his request by a shaky hand not a minute later. Us gathered folks were back to finding it a genuine task to draw air. The man sipped from the glass with his neck crooked so that he did not lose any through his wound. It was then that he did at last acknowledge the rest of our being there. As I had worried, one of our women gasped and indeed fell on her husband’s shoulder when she met the horrible gaze. Our tormentor cleared his throat.

“I was thinkin’ to myself, how nice it was to ride into a town without the starin’. I see now that was on account of all the prairie dogs hunkerin’ down in their hole.”

The young cowboy, with which Eli and I had shared a stagecoach to this point, was none too pleased by the teasing. A guardian angel must have stayed his hand from reaching his gun, though the boiling emotions on his face were left unchecked. A number of our men had guns, but were not so keen nor impatient to employ them.

The stranger troubled the bartender once more. “’TIS a mite crowded in here, wouldn’t you reckon?”

“Yes sir?”

“Well now it ain’t picnic weather out, but I also ain’t seen so many bodies lookin’ to be under one roof, less’n there was a storm comin’, or festivities. Well… I behold a clear sky and long faces.”

Another group’s coachman—an older but not yet frail man—spoke for us. “We’re ALL in here; every one of us, in Penance. Seven days here, it’s been, for my party.”

“What keeps you, the lively atmosphere?” the stranger mocked, propping himself up with his elbows on the bar.

“It’s like this,” the coachman informed gravely. “There is presence, a… manifestation, on the range that leads westward away from here, and it has allowed no man or woman safe passage.”

“Them first words sound to me like fancy oratin’ for ‘ghost.’”

The man’s insinuation elicited a harsh murmur that washed over our assemblage. It was not a thought that had escaped us, but the actual vocalization of such a notion was all the more taboo. Eli rose from his chair, still clutching my hand.

“We are not simple, sir. These here folks know what they saw,” he berated the man, who just glared. I stood with Eli, now with both hands on his. He never did have tolerance for being made smaller. I would like to think I was good for him in that way, guiding him away from intemperate actions. I had lived with the denigration a greater deal of time than he, and despite it all, learned to keep living.

“Three groups have made for the ridge,” the coachman continued. “My own, and the second, we lost one of our number each before we turned back. The last that tried… lost all except one.” He placed a hand on the shoulder of the boy sat beside him: no more than fourteen years old, wheat-colored hair and, as I understood the world, faces only ever got to be so pale if they had been within an arm’s length of Death.

“We’ve stopped everyone else who’s come along,” the coachman concluded.

“It were me younger brother it took!” a middle-aged woman with red hair wailed, her husband and children huddled close.

“My littlest one. My only girl,” a father whispered from the other end of the room. For the three days Eli and I had been here, he had confided in no one and no thing, save for his glass.

“It had wings. Like a raven’s, but bigger. Didn’t it, boys?” said a rancher, who had ridden with the childless father. His partners concurred with somber mumbling.

“It had lots of voices,” was what the Irish woman’s girl had to contribute, before being shushed.

“The wind up and quits blowin’ when it’s near, that’s how you kin tell w-“

“You weren’t one of the ones what went there Zed, shut yer mouth!”

“So,” the stranger finally cut in, having not let up for a moment with watching my Eli. “You ain’t been there for yourself.”

“These people have no cause to lie,” Eli rationalized sternly. “No grounds to embellish such awful loss! Shame on you, insinuating they’re spreading falsehoods about the departed!”

I could have struck him for his rashness, but against all expectations, the stranger did not appear to take offense.

“Jist gittin’ the facts, son. I believe in ghosts myself. My issue was with givin’ it some highfalutin name that don’t do ‘em justice,” he clarified, prompting the coachman to furrow his brow and look down at his table. The man pushed off from the counter, glass in hand, of which he had drank very little.

“I aim to see to my horse. Then I aim to be crossin’ that mountain pass by sundown. Anyone who rides with me will have my protection, I can guarantee.”

Dead silence was the travelers’ answer to him. Without so much as a nod, he started for the door. It was I who let my voice be heard next.

“We two,” I announced, Eli at my side. “We will join you.”

“Don’t go with him!”

With his outburst, the young cowboy Eli and I had kept company with immediately stole away the critical eyes (the stranger’s included) that had shifted to me when I spoke.

“Don’t go with him,” the lad again advised. “I know him. I… I know you, mister. Now I was raised to let every man say his piece, but your word is not to be trusted.”

When the stranger remained quiet, the cowboy yelled for all the town to hear. “If that there uniform didn’t already suade all you’uns, maybe knowin’ him by his name will! This man is Jonah Hex.”

The title was of no significance to me, but a few of us (chiefly the men of Jonah Hex’s own age) looked, all at once, a sight more vengeful. I could tell then that Eli was making to move between me and the brewing contention, so I held him firmly in place.

“I never socialized with you,” Hex calmly asserted to the incendiary.

“I know you, even so. I heard you done plenty of killin’ for the rebels,” the cowboy accused. His thumb fidgeted at the hem of his coat.

“You keep that hand off’n your belt, friend,” Hex warned.

“I heard you defected, soon as you knew the rebels was losin’, just so you could do more killin’ for the other side.”

“Y’don’t hear so good then. I ain’t stirrin’ up any hostilities, now or later.”

The cowboy briefly regarded Eli and me out the corner of his eye. There was a fire within it. He returned his attention to Hex.

“… You sometimes forget what color you’re wearin’, mister?”

“No. I do not.”

“Smug bastard,” the cowboy fumed. “Smug son of-“

The grey wolf was suddenly there in our midst, having been acutely aware of the mounting tension. It had clamped its fangs onto the young firebrand’s right wrist before the hand there attached could fully draw and aim its weapon. By some miracle, the pistol did not discharge in the process of clattering across the floorboards, at my shoes. Hex observed peaceably the great creature’s escorting of the cowboy in a complete circle with short, violent yanks. Every other person was still as a stone. When the cowboy attempted to box the wolf in the ear, it let go of the one arm in exchange for the left, and the lad took to hollering something terrible.

“Hex!” was the only whole, intelligible word I could tell you was uttered.

The grin Hex gave the cowboy was somehow more fiendish than the wolf’s own. “I can’t rightly guess what you’d appreciate me doin’.”

“Call off the dog, for… GAH! In the name of God!”

“Fool thing jist follows me around. I ain’t very well taught it to ‘drop’.”

The cowboy’s whimpering had become difficult to stomach. “Then… then leave, please! Make it follow you!”

Hex did not directly oblige. He ambled up to Eli and me, picking up the gun that had been cast aside. To say the least, it took me by surprise when the intimidating man, still facing us, holstered the weapon safely back into the boy’s belt. Hex growled (in a tribal language I did not know) what was presumably a command for the wolf. It’s eyes and jowls slackened, but it did not budge. Hex repeated the phrase more coarsely, and the beast unhooked itself from the cowboy’s poor arm right away, bounding back out the saloon, all aggression purged from its behavior.

Hex then tendered what was barely discernible as an apology to the cowboy. “He weren’t so interested in listenin’. He don’t take to bein’ called ‘dog.’”

The cowboy shook, in his ignominy, and in noting the wolf’s response. “Lyin’… you lyin’ snake-“

“Clean them bites. I ain’t had him looked at by one of them… veteran-Aryans, they call ‘em.”

My laugh at Hex’s unknowing was rude, I knew, but it could not have been helped. He peered at me, and I composed myself; a gesture born of respect, mind you, not fear. I was certain of that then. I thought Eli too, in that instance, had begun to reevaluate just who this man was.

“You say you two are goin’ over that ridge with me…”

It was the faintest I had heard him speak. His question—the one yet unsaid—hung in the air as plainly as if he had finished; the question of why I, of all the people in Penance, was accepting of his offer. I replied with no insincerity.

“I should not be glad to see you go alone.”

I must have confused him immensely. He did not call me a fool, nor feel the need to remind Eli of his woman’s rightful place. It was but the most minute bow I earned, as the bartender had received earlier.

Just then the posse of ranchers was collecting their belongings and heading out to their coach. The one who had previously chipped in now addressed Hex.

“We’ll be going too. We won’t be having that thing take any more of us,” he affirmed.

A stout yet meek-looking man seated by a window got up, hat in hand. “They sent word from Oregon that my mother is ill. I… I can’t wait here, not another day.”

The pale boy that had been orphaned not a week prior ran to where Hex was standing, abandoning the elderly coachman that had taken the child under his wing. The driver pleaded for him, to no avail.

“I won’t stay!” the boy shouted defiantly. “My father was Brom Cavender, and he was not a coward or a nobody! I am Hadley Cavender, and neither shall I be a coward or a nobody!”

The coachman’s defeat was in his eyes when he, next, reasoned with Hex. “He came back from the mountain by himself. All covered in blood he was. The boy has no more family he knows of, anywhere, and you see, I… have a duty to stay with the family I set out with. … See to it that Hadley settles in a decent town, where he will be cared for.”

“That I will,” was Hex’s pledge.

All appeared to be resolved with the details of our venture, and so Eli and I were prepared to make our way to our coach, with or without our cowboy associate who now carried a considerable grudge. Jonah Hex impeded us, however, with a gently raised glove and an astonishingly penitent expression.

“Seems as though I won’t be a’tall lonesome. Aught to set yourselves down here, see if some soldiers don’t pass through and hep you better’n I can.”

“No,” Eli cleared up with haste. “We’ll go, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Well then,” Hex muttered quite vacuously, apparently unaccustomed to denial delivered in such a non-confrontational manner. Likewise, contrasting his bullying of the cowboy, he sounded apologetic, properly so; on what basis, I could only speculate. I did not think the courtesy towards me necessary.

A sporting lady (perhaps the only one living and working in Penance at the time) emerged from the back of the room, draped herself about a post supporting the ceiling and sang after Hex, who was no nearer to exiting, past all the delays.

“There’s no sense in rushin’ off just yet,” she beamed. “Why not leave in the morning?”

“Can’t, missy. I already have a lady to attend,” Hex dismissed, waving his water beyond the saloon’s entrance, suggesting he had some intention to quench his horse straight from the glass itself. “I wouldn’t be unfaithful. She’s a woman I know I can lean on. ‘sides that, she has a finer rump than you.”

As I said, he was undoubtedly the strangest stranger that ever there was.

***

True to our words, those of us claiming the audacity to weather whatever devilry had beset the westward hills did just that. We withdrew from Penance as the sky grew tired and Mr. Hex grew more surly, suffering the impediments of some of us reviewing our luggage twice, or bidding the town a farewell lengthier than a blink.

Twenty minutes on, from the start of our excursion, left Penance nothing but a candlelight in the sea of sand and grass at our backs. The ridge there that our sights were set on taunted us for every step our horses took. I conjured, that night, the irrational belief that the ever-growing mountain was, in no uncertain terms, eager to blot out what precious sunlight we had remaining; it is a conviction I hold to this day, for no scripture or trust in a Savior has since quelled the concern in me that the earth, on that particular evening, in that particular place, was itself evil.

We had, as our convoy, fewer than a dozen ranchers; some, atop their own steeds, and others at the reins of the three stagecoaches. Eli and I rode in a fourth. Our young cowboy had elected to stay behind, with his pride so bruised, even when Eli had promised to him that there would be no incentive to answer to Mr. Hex, in any capacity, for the journey’s duration. Thusly, the lead rancher (whose named we learned was Amos) was our new courier. Same as the two other couples on this trip, Eli and I were instructed not to leave our compartment for any occasion, as we were perceived to be most ill-equipped for the dangers the hardened riders knew to be lying ahead. I alone knew Eli owned a firearm, and could cleanly hit his mark from a respectable distance.

Hadley, the boy, shared our cab. He did not fill the air with endearing contemplations that I might have assumed all children his age had in abundance. Neither did he show overt grief, in returning to the site of his family’s tragic and senseless murder. Instead he was intensely fixated on Hex’s revolvers, swinging at the veteran’s hips as his horse kept pace with us. Hex caught wind of the goggling shortly thereafter, and cast a scowl at the boy.

“My father could shoot,” was Hadley’s defense.

“Hell of a lot of men could. That’s why so damn many of ‘em ain’t around to shoot,” Hex droned, unimpressed.

By this time, the mere hours in which I had had dealings with Jonah Hex told me there was no requisite of inuring myself to him. Elsewhere, the entirety of my life, there had been in effect an ordinance for me to hold my tongue.

“You need not be crass with him.”

Upon reproving Hex’s methods, the most unreservedly gratifying thing occurred: A man, older and more seasoned than I, listened to my words.

That Southern cavalryman, with his burns and cuts, looking as mean as a cornered bear, simply surveyed for several moments the last sliver of sun which shone over the crags and drifts of our mountainous obstruction. He had an air of rumination about him, and took a long breath before responding.

“The way I seen it, boys grow up to die young, if’n y’don’t teach ‘em how things are.”

Eli tugged at my sleeve discreetly, wanting no trouble to arise.

“There is a time for compassion, also, Mr. Hex. When a boy could benefit from a little understanding, rather than further indelicacy. Both are rudimentary to a child’s upbringing,” I declared.

Hadley and Eli were silent. Hex wrung the leather reins in his hands and squinted (more than he did by nature), but eventually relaxed in his saddle; a concession of having been bested.

“You speak real finely, miss.”

“And you do not, sir.”

Mr. Hex let out an amused grunt.

“What do I call you other’n ‘miss’ then?” he inquired, misconstruing my objections to his conduct.

I smiled. “‘Euryale’ is my name.”

Hex tried unsuccessfully to interpret the pronunciation. “… ‘My eye’s a’ what, now?”

“‘Eu-rya-le’,” Eli annunciated, fondly. “It means she will ‘roam far.’”

“Strange,” decided Hex, hardly the one to comment on such things.

I expounded. “Its origins lie in a very old story; a Greek narrative, that my father came across, and passed on to me.”

“And your father, he could read,” Hex inferred. He said it cautiously, not disbelieving-like.

“My father was smarter than most cared to notice. Yes, he did read. Texts and poems, journals… anything that he knew the master of our plantation would not recognize as being misplaced, in the time we required to finish them.”

Eli seized my hand again, when realizing the memories had upset me. I found inside myself the will to disclose, “He only took the stories for my siblings and me. We begged for them, not knowing what he risked.”

“Your master let you keep that name?” Hadley redirected, skeptical.

He was so very young, and I could not be cross with him. “The plantation’s owner and his family had their own name for me, but it was not mine. … Would you like to hear the story that my name comes from?”

Hadley seemed invested.

“Euryale was not the hero of the tale, nor the focus, for that matter. Her sister, Medusa, was wronged by a being she could never hope to have authority over. The story says that he was a deity, but he was wicked, instead of benevolent like our God. For the infraction she did not commit, Medusa was blamed by others of the false idol’s kind. A sorceress among them cursed Medusa to be a loathsome monster, never to have another commiserate her; to but look at her face, then, would turn one to stone.”

There, I paused, to enjoy Hadley’s rapture, Eli’s warmth… Hex, even, leaned suspiciously on his mount, intrigued. His wolf, trotting dutifully near his stirrup for the past hour, stared at him with its giant orange eyes. And while it was a simple animal, Hex became ill at ease, conscious of himself, and he sneered at the creature.

“As fate would have it, Medusa would find consolation in her sisters: Stheno and Euryale. Though they were gifted with remarkable longevity, and though they were free of the guilt that the corrupt rulers had ascribed to Medusa, the sisters chose to stand with her, and bear the same undue punishment. … And so, you see, there is dignity to be found in those demonized by history. I cherish my name, for this reason.”

Hadley frowned at the conclusion. “But… no one saved them? What did the monsters look like?”

“You’ve neglected what younger ears gather from stories,” Eli chaffed quietly.

“Boys’ ears, perhaps,” I retorted, turning my nose up at him.

It had all been in good humor. Eli smirked and apprised Hadley. “Listen here then, Hadley. These sisters grew tusks, like those elephants you may’ve seen at the circus have. And their hair, it was replaced by snakes, bigger than rattlers…”

I adored Eli so, for his gift of preoccupying small ones; Hadley was soon lost in his regaling of heroes and quests from across oceans, and I, paying no mind to the menace of hills before us, discovered there was solace to be had. I composed a silent prayer for those safeguarding our expedition, as well as those of us being transported with bated breath and far less steely resolve.

Jonah Hex watched me do so. He had adopted a curiously approving countenance.

“It’s a fittin’ name… miss.”

***

Palpable, suffocating darkness was now the usher of our caravan. No more was Penance a beacon to us. With our riders’ torches revealing the primitive trail only a yard or so around us, and the discontinuity of stars alone defining land from sky, it was hard to guess the span of wilderness that we had yet to brave, if we were to reach the ridge’s summit.

Our climb was steady. Hadley had fallen asleep between Eli and me, exhausted by stories and the monotonous trek. Some ranchers endeavored to establish if we had already passed the rise on which they had, a week ago, faced their malicious spirit; the fretting and deliberating proved to excite the husband and wife riding in the coach behind us, and it necessitated a scolding from Amos for them all to keep their heads. He then called to us from his perch in the driver’s box; he did so in a gravelly timbre, so as to not again ignite any alarm.

“We’re twenty minutes from the peak, y’hear? … You both seem sensible, so I should tell you, this is about where my company saw… it, when first we rode. But, you rest easy now; we heard weird things then, long before it finally took the Rainer girl. This time, I haven’t seen OR heard anything.”

“Neither’ve I,” came Hex’s drawl, his mare’s gait matching Amos’ position. “But it don’t make me ‘rest easy.’ There ain’t no critters anywhere in these hills, ‘part from us.”

Amos tossed the reins and jutted his chin out at the animals there harnessed. “Horses look at peace. No better judges of surroundings than them, I’ve learned.”

“I think,” Eli proposed, “… we would feel it also, if something unholy walked this region, this day. Our souls, not our worldly perceptions, would warn us.”

I drew Eli’s eyes to mine. “You say you do NOT feel anything now? Then I envy you, and pray my own intuitions are misguided.”

Eli pondered this. I hugged Hadley’s bobbing head to my dress’ collar. “… I pray there are better lives waiting for us all, past this mountain.”

“What got you both hightailin’ west, trouble? You findin’ one of your families?” Hex pressed.

“We heard tell of the river,” Eli shared. “A grand one, just over this range. You’re right, sir; we are seeking Euryale’s family. They may be there.”

“They surely may be,” mused Hex. “Railroad made it to that town some years back, can’t recall how many. Good a place as any to settle, when you’re fixin’ to git hitched-“

“Mr. Hex!” Eli and I drowned him out in unison; we were boisterous enough to rouse poor Hadley. Hex’s forthright ways could fluster most anyone, and I do not mind saying that I, who welcomed his candor in many aspects, was no exception.

Unsure of who else had been attentive to Hex’s maundering, namely Amos, Eli readied to mend the conversation. “… You know same as all of us, Mr. Hex, a boy and a girl like us wouldn’t… even if there weren’t laws, it would not be correct for-“

“Why in tarnation not? What laws?!” Hex’s puzzlement was earnest.

I grabbed the coach’s door and pulled my head outside. “Mr. Hex, PLEASE. This is not to be discussed at these volumes.”

This conciliated Hex, though he was still none the wiser to the realities that Eli and I withstood regularly.

“I’d like it not to be left open-ended; Euryale and myself wouldn’t dream of carrying out an ambition so… outlandish,” Eli fibbed. It was intended to appease Amos, should he have been attuned to the subject.

The rancher’s acknowledgement drifted in our cab’s window with plumes of dust being kicked up by the horses. “Needn’t be afraid of what I think. I’m a simple farmhand, born and raised. Never had big ideas, like them congressmen, ‘bout what men can and can’t do.”

Amos freed a hand from his steering and patted our roof comfortingly. “I’ll keep your secret. But tell me, son.. you really couldn’t find a filly more like you?”

Our driver cackled at his own joke, unaware Eli felt equally insulted as I.

“I shouldn’t need find a woman more like me,” Eli maintained, reaching over Hadley and brushing a lock of hair from my temple. “I’d just a’soon find the one I love.”

Hadley wrinkled his nose, swiftly coaxing us away from our seriousness. Hex bent in alongside the coach, grimly preparing his next words.

“You don’t have kin in Green River, then.”

“She has no kin to speak of, now,” Eli confessed. “Mine… I disowned. Being that they couldn’t see the war was over. Or that a war was had at all.”

As Eli had come to my aid many a time when I evoked my past, so did I come to his. I knew he must have been remembering his brother, when his blood ran cold in my grip on his arm. He swallowed, then faced Hex, who waited patiently.

“Euryale and I, we crossed paths a year after the fighting. And maybe it won’t be in Green River, but we’re going to make a home for ourselves, in one town or the next,” Eli vowed with determination.

“See that you don’t run outta country,” Hex bade us heavily.

“HOLD! WHOA, WHOA!”

At the foremost rider’s cry, our progress was halted. Hex jolted out of his repose, startling me with just how quickly the enmity and dogged constitution could return to him. From my seat, I saw our scout wrestling with his horse, which stamped nervously to and fro, bellowing, and frothing through its halter bit. The man swung her about, and jerked towards two other ranchers. Their rallying devolved into frenzied hisses and jeers, keeping us others in suspense.

“What is it?” Amos barked.

“Euryale?”

Hadley stammered my name, pawing at my arm. “I won’t tell anyone you want to marry Eli.”

“Thank you Hadley, that is kind,” I validated, hoping he would be heartened. He jumped from our seat and joined Eli by the right-side door. They craned their necks to deduce the hinderance ahead.

Amos’ already fragile tact was waning. “Well?! What’d he see?”

“He says, ‘a man!’” one rifleman reported.

Hex’s wolf sniffed the night breeze; docile, though alert. Its owner noticed I had become chilled, and, remiss in his deed, Hex began to offer me his coat.

I eyed the article, unable to gracefully put into words his oversight. My speechlessness led Hex to comprehending just as well.

He donned the coat, frustrated. “I weren’t thinkin’.”

“No, please,” I interrupted, “ … I cannot accept the thought of wearing those colors, but know that I do not think of you, and their connotations, as inseparable.”

Hex emoted not at all.

“You do not… represent that side of history,” I rephrased.

Amos continuously interrogated his fellow ranchers; the account, growing no more coherent.

“You say the man didn’t walk, now how is it that he’s in a different place than where you spotted him?”

“It… DIDn’t walk, it moved without walkin’, I try to tell yeh!”

I looked at Hex ardently. “You do not wear them because you are proud; you wear them because you are not.”

…

“I think it is a merciless thing, what retribution you have placed upon yourself.”

“Do you now?”

“Do you not imagine your judgement should be left to more righteous hands?” I implored further.

“No ma’am.”

“Why is that?”

“God weren’t there… that day.”

I was to unearth no more of Hex’s background, for at that moment, an unannounced, malign rush of dread overcame us all. It was not at all comparable to wind, no; the air was venomous. I saw that the sensation was not all my own when Eli took on a pallor so chalky that it could have been distinguished with or without the assistance of a lamp. From behind and beyond our cab, disturbed yelps from men and women alike rang out. Hex’s horse reared, and his wolf skulked at the coach’s wheel, no longer the formidable predator we beheld in Penance.

A shot punctuated the tumult, and then more followed. I hauled Hadley to the floor instinctively.

“In the brush! Kill it!”

“Where?!”

“Hold your fire!”

“It’s circlin’ behind us!”

Eli had not drawn his gun. “Mr. Hex! Can you see it?”

I lay prone. Shielding Hadley’s face, I tipped the nearest door slightly ajar. Hex had momentarily restrained his frantic mare by grasping her bridle itself and running a hand down her cheek. Had he been a second faster, he may have evaded another horse—this one, having succeeded in throwing its rider—which bucked madly and collided with the pair. Hex’s leg was pinned by the beasts’ flanks, while the bronco viciously bit his mare’s shoulder. She shrieked in an appallingly human way, and all three thrashed on the ground.

The righthand window of our coach was splintered by an unseen force. Eli thrust Hadley and I out of the transport as we were showered in debris. Impacting the cool dirt blurred my vision, but, for the rest of my days I shall remember, with absolute lucidity, the sight of our horses engulfed in a fire that burst forth from below their hooves, and the coach upending; hurled, like a toy. Amos was propelled along with it.

Hadley was not in my arms. I crawled through the billowing haze, and spied Hex wrenching his heel from the saddle cinch as his mare righted herself, and galloped away, utterly crazed. She corrected her flight too late, tumbling over a fatally-steep slope. There was distant whinnying, and then nothing at all. The abstruse battle had dissolved.

I now ask of all those immersed in this tale to grant their credence generously. For the gossiping and prating surrounding this mountain range, and that which had circulated Penance, was far from unfounded. It was our luckless host’s lot to encounter, on that thirty-first day of October, the horror that Hadley, Amos and the other men had once survived, and all that remains to be read, here, is a documentation of stark savagery, and of woe.

Over the crest of the ridge stood what one might have mistook for a man. I should say, moreover, one might have mistook it for standing. It in fact was not.

It was faintly silhouetted against the inky sky, but my eyes were acclimated well enough to the environment by that time that I may now soundly state that a body, brittle and decaying, hung there by a noose lashed around its throat. Light zephyrs traversing the hills made the cadaver oscillate, and the toes of its boots traced the sand lazily. Its twisting rope stretched on and on into the cavernous black above, as though it were puppeteered by some cruel divinity.

Eli, Hex and all the rest were forgotten for an instant. I could not move of my own volition. The aura of our enemy was crushing, relentless, nearly insurmountable. In our company was some unearthly thing not accounted for by the confines of sanity, and only by the grace of God was I able to bring myself to renounce the consuming void.

Our coach, and one other, were irreparable, scorched masses, scattered like seeds. A third, I saw speeding down the mountain, with those left behind given up for dead. The fourth was overturned, and I recognized, scrambling out of it, the man who sought to reach Oregon. He sobbed and held a palm out at the phantom; it had neared, without my realizing it.

Tears streamed from underneath the stout man’s spectacles. “Please Ma… I’m coming home now. I know I was away, but I-I… there was the war. We stopped the rebs. I’m coming home now. You can’t go. You ain’t s-seen the medal your son got yet.”

Like a diseased marionette, the apparition dangled a shadowed arm out to the man at its feet. The son, and former soldier, was reduced to a tortured child before my eyes. His audible anguish stabbed at the still of the night.

“Back, devil!”

Recovered from his ridicule, and with bandaged forearms, it was our young cowboy: racing up the path on horseback, taking aim at the foul wraith. Two bullets were fired; one buried itself in the soil, while the other punched neatly through the desired target’s lapel. It absorbed the projectile like the lifeless husk it was.

The cowboy was forty yards off and closing in, lining up his third shot. A gleam was visible in his eyes, even from this distance. “Fire and brimstone unto you, you-“

Flame from the nearby wreckage swelled, licking the cowboy’s face; it had done so with undeniably hostile intent directing it, shifting not as a natural blaze should. The lad writhed and slipped off his mount, brutally coming to rest in a shallow ditch.

I screamed for Mr. Hex. He had been dragged so carelessly by his mare that he was recuperating with great toil. He coughed, and laboriously rolled onto his stomach. I knew there would be no time for Hex to intervene.

The cowboy pointed his gun, using his one intact arm, and he drew a bead on his foe, using his one unimpaired eye. The hanged thing performed a stiff, swiping motion, and the nails, harnesses and varied metal objects littering the ground rose as one, contorting and melting into one another to form a long, pitted stave. It leveled with the cowboy’s skull. He cocked his pistol’s hammer.

The spear darted at its victim, but I watched as Hex’s wolf, battered and singed, leapt into view and foiled the lethal blow, which glanced off the canine’s haunch. A howl died in the animal’s lungs, and it crashed to the earth at the cowboy’s side. The cowboy’s chest heaved, then the beast’s. They were alive.

Our attacker made no effort to try again. It lingered in subdued obstinacy; swaying, and crackling with rot all the while.

The ashes and planks of our coach buckled, and Eli appeared beneath them, partially pulling himself loose. Relief flooded my soul. He choked my name, but neither he nor I dared to run to the other to embrace; the ghost had glided, on its macabre leash, squarely between us. It then spun in my direction.

“No! Euryale!” Eli rummaged for his weapon, but his hip and holster were still trapped under much of the coach’s remnants.

I waved him off, recalling the cowboy. “Don’t shoot at it!”

I was prepared to die, but not ready to. The dark shape was two body’s lengths away, obscuring Eli. I kept my head high; were this the Devil, it would be in his nature to savor one’s groveling, and I would permit him no such satisfaction. By now, I was hearing its “breathing,” were that the unbroken, low whistle issuing from behind its drooping brim. This was when Hadley stepped out of the clouds of smoke corralling the scene of our impasse. The boy was, with hands atremble, wielding one of Hex’s revolvers, which had been mislaid during the horses’ skirmish.

“Don’t, Hadley! Get away from it!” Eli exhorted.

I tried to be resilient, for Hadley; he was disconcerted enough as he was. “Go to Eli!”

Hex was on one knee, rasping, clenching his ribs like they might fall away without his care. His eyes widened, once seeing Hadley and his objective, and the man opened his mouth to prevent the impending threat; a deep, thick red spilled out instead.

Three of Hadley’s fingers encircled the trigger. “I can kill it…” the boy grimaced.

“Hadley, stop!”

The ghost’s knotted neck rotated to where the child had boldly planted himself. Hadley seized up, and all the world hesitated with him. The flames may have frozen, too; I could not be sure. Quaking, Hadley slowly repositioned his shot.

The barrel was trained on me.

Hex staggered upright.

Eli panicked. “EURYALE!”

“What’re you doin’, son…” said Hex, hauntingly.

Hadley’s lip quivered. “It’s them.”

“Speak up,” Hex told him sharply.

“My father w-wasn’t a liar.”

“… We ain’t of any such opinion-”

“It’s them,” Hadley seethed, in a voice that both was and was not his own. His hold on his weapon tightened. “They betrayed us, our good work and our food. They left with the Yankees. And the land came to death. They ruined us.”

“You’re not shootin’ my gun. You hearin’ me?”

“DAMN THIS-“ Eli failed again to lever the boards from his back. “EURYALE!”

“Let Hadley go,” I demanded of the suspended body. It creaked and danced, in an abrupt gale that ate through to my core. The thing tricked no one, playing dead.

Hadley straightened with a shudder. “They have no right. No rights.”

“NO!” Eli roared.

Hex had been thirty paces from Hadley, but had crept up to twenty. The man’s good eye narrowed. “Ain’t none of us have a right to be here. We jist are.”

“My father didn’t lie to me.”

“SHOOT IT, HEX!”

“I forgive him, Lord,” I whispered. “It is not his doing.”

Something akin to words seeped out of the ghost:

“indulge me…

indulge in me”

This was heeded not by Hex. “Put my gun down.”

“They’re not human.”

“You’re not shootin’ anybody.”

“My father doesn’t have a coward for a son.”

The muzzle of Hadley’s gun twitched. Its mechanism ticked.

There was a pop.

Hex had drawn.

Hadley was sprawled in the dirt.

I forgot any need to be wary in the presence of the hanging reaper; caring little if I were snatched up by its malevolent thrall, I threw myself to Hadley. I desperately checked his heartbeat. My despair was like no other I have harbored in my lifetime; a maroon badge pooled on his breast.

Hex dropped his revolver. Eli was unresponsive, gazing at our dismal spectacle.

I cradled Hadley, staining my clothes. “What have you done, Jonah Hex?”

“Hey you,” the gunslinger rumbled.

I was shaken to see him studying me, and my mournful burden. Hate was etched into him, every inch. I understood, though, that it was not a hatred for us; perhaps, not even for the entity taunting Hex from over his shoulder. Not all of it, anyhow.

Hex turned to the dormant oblivion. His bearing was soft; pacifying, even. It made his acid tone considerably more disquieting.

“I’m supposin’, if I were to shoot you, you wouldn’t be so accommodatin’ as to die.”

The morbid pendulum rocked a stride closer.

“’t’sa shame. That arrangement sounds mighty agreeable to me.”

Amos stumbled forward, dazed, and coated in soot. One proper look at our spectral nemesis coerced the rancher into groping for his gun, but I, supporting Hadley, mouthed “no” and shook my head vehemently. Amos reluctantly eased, gave a melancholic glance to the body I carried, and then proceeded to Eli to release him from his prison; beyond their chore, they were transfixed, as I was, by Hex advancing on the anomalous evil.

“See, you jist killed my horse, and you made me shoot a boy who weren’t responsible for hisself. And I’m findin’ no excuses whatsoever not to take you by that big fuckin’ necktie of yours and haul your chickenshit hide back to hell. Not-a-one.”

A dull groan escaped his opponent.

“Real ornery feller. But you’re a small feller also, ain’t you?”

The ghost’s rope strained, deafeningly so. I gathered Hex had infuriated whatever sinister will manipulated it. The space between the two of them wavered, rippling like a pond. The effect swept over Hex, but no unfavorable consequences came of this; he continued his serene walk.

“Filth,” Hex spat. “What you think you can show me I don’t already see every day?”

The air stirred a second time.

“Jeb don’t blame me for Fort Charlotte. He’s wrong not to, but he don’t blame me.”

A third time, the villain unleashed its witchcraft, whose impurity found its way to me as it did Hex. Flashes of my family invaded my mind. They never experienced a life outside of the plantation.

I fled without them.

left them to die…

No.

I did.

I did not.

“White Fawn done what she done. I couldn’ta stopped her. She were too free a spirit,” snarled Hex. “You’re nothin’. You have nothin’. I know what you really are.”

Eli was at last freed, and he hastened to me, aware of my disorientation. I saw truth and decency again when he enfolded me. We held Hadley, together.

Jonah Hex was a single step from it, now. Another jet of fire, wreathing with sentience, erupted from the earth and almost slashed through his torso, but it fell short. Hex deliberately plunged his arm into it, as a demonstration of contempt. He sustained sparse injuries, for the flame recoiled at his touch.

“It’s not a war when it’s one side that’s fightin’.”

The corpse’s dried bones clacked beneath its garb, and it crooned to Hex in a horrid, pealing chant, not unlike it was spoken from inside a hollowed-out tree:

“it comes ever naturally to your ilk…

your trivial desires…

your infantile bickering, clawing…

you and all my cousins’ bastard creations, affronts…

you will always be so good at it…

for me”

Its withered fingers extended, but Hex nabbed the wrists, forcing them apart. I could swear to you now, even by the paltry light of Amos’ lantern and what little help the moon was providing through the canopy of fog, that the figure wore the Union Army’s blue on one sleeve, and grey on the other, like Hex himself bore. The cavalryman pulled the hanging atrocity toe-to-toe with himself.

“Best be gittin’, now. It’s the dead stayin’ dead, what scares me.”

Thunderous percussions—similar to those of drums, and not of a storm—sounded over the land. The sky bowed and fluctuated about the astral tether belonging to Hex’s captive, and, as equivocally as it had surfaced, the blight then receded into thin air. The man who had vanquished it was left there: fists empty, panting, with twice as many lesions and contusions as he had before sunset.

I wish I could tell you there was an ambiance of resolution to accompany the victory, but this was not so. Embers, and the fetor of burnt horses’ flesh, stung our senses. The night was dense. A downcast Amos relieved me of Hadley, after trying and failing to express his condolences. I initially resisted surrendering my charge, until Eli persuaded me to with a shivering hand cupped on mine. The stout man had collected himself, and gotten our cowboy to his unsteady feet; over and over (but expecting no reply), they both questioned in manic tones what we had all witnessed still living, lurking, feeding, here in the vast frontier of America.

Jonah Hex trod to the cliff where his mare had met her end; on his way, he stooped but once to retrieve the weapon he had used that evening. Eli and I trailed him.

“Mr. Hex…” Eli disturbed his grieving. “We’d like you to know… we know what you done for us, and I thank-“

Hex’s revolver snapped to Eli’s brow. We were in shock; immobilized, and struck dumb by the act.

“You ever ended a life, son?”

Eli was unflinching. “No sir, I haven’t.”

Hex moved close to Eli’s face. Marring the man’s features, in addition to those terrible abrasions, was the same outrage he had fostered before. His triumph over the demon had not soothed his conscience in the least.

“Don’t you thank me for what I done. Don’t you ever thank a man for killin’ for you. You can’t know what they gave up.”

He was broken, a thousand times over. I was sorry for him, truly; therefore I was taken aback by my own immodesty, which ensued once Hex lowered his gun. My memory of this night is vague only here, and though I know I am accountable, I wish it were true that I was scarcely in control of the regrettable words that passed my lips.

“I would not thank you,” I swore fiercely. “Not in all the years I have left will I thank you, for choosing my life over another. He was a boy, Jonah Hex!”

I refused Eli’s arm shepherding me away, pushing it aside.

“My life was payed for by the blood of One other… and you have made it so my life has been payed for by the blood of two. I would have died in Hadley’s stead, but you are selfish, and arrogant and you dispense death on a whim. No, you will not have my gratitude or forgiveness.”

I fear I must have hit him, or chastised him with more profane language than I can admit to using, myself. Hex justified himself in no way, standing as a statue would.

Amos had rounded up a spooked horse and mounted, with Hadley enclosed securely in front of him.

“I’ll ride back to Penance, and tell everyone… tell everyone the way is clear.”

“And we’ll stay here. If that monster shows itself again, we know how to fight it,” the stout man ensured. The young cowboy nodded.

Hex’s wolf limped to him. He stroked its ear, then worked up the nerve to look at Eli and me.

“I’ll be takin’ you to Green River,” he croaked.

And so he did.

***

We did not speak to our scarred stranger for all the remainder of the journey. He led our horses to town. Without us asking, he gruffly convinced the local hostelry to provide Eli and me with rooms. Then he rode west; a wolf in tow, and a heavy coat on his back.

Eli and I would find lasting sanctuary in a mission, in the heart of Arizona territory. It was 1882 by then. Our son Hadley would come to us in the summertime of 1883.

I pray as I have prayed in these many years since, that Mr. Jonah Hex did cease to be that man all in grey, that never did let another tend to his wounds.

Hai mai ascoltato PIERO CALAMANDREI in una delle sue appassionate difese? Ora puoi!

14

archive of Casa Cuseni, an original newspaper article, preserved by Daphne Phelps, who hosted Danilo Dolci in Taormina.

Hai mai ascoltato PIERO CALAMANDREI in una delle sue appassionate difese? Ora puoi!

archivio di Casa Cuseni, un articolo di giornale originale, conservato da Daphne Phelps, che ospitò a Taormina Danilo Dolci.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;

or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;

clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;

oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

……………………………………………………………………….

A story of Sicily: the Sicilian Gandhi (but he was not Sicilian ...).

This photographic story is connected, at least in part, with the previous one, whose link is represented by the nephew of the painter Robert Kitson, Miss Daphne Phelps: in life she was a psychiatric social worker (she collaborated with Anna Freud, daughter by Sigmund Freud), on the death of his uncle in 1948 he moved to Sicily to take care of Casa Cuseni, having inherited it: initially he wanted to sell it and then return to England, instead he ended up falling in love with Taormina and Sicily, deciding to stay there for the rest of his life. Daphne ran Casa Cuseni welcoming paying guests, there are many illustrious names of artists, writers, well-known personalities who have stayed there: Danilo Dolci was one of these guests, and it is precisely about him that I wish to speak. He was born in 1924 in Sesana (Trieste), after a somewhat eventful life, in 1952 he moved to Trappeto (between Palermo and Trapani), a country among the poorest and most disadvantaged in Italy: that same year the first of numerous fasts, going to bed and fasting in the bed of a child who died of malnutrition, a protest that will end only when the authorities undertake to build a sewer. Danilo Dolci continues with numerous initiatives, from the publication of a book ("Banditi a Partinico", which makes public opinion aware of the poor living conditions of western Sicily, to this book and many others will follow), to the "strike at reverses ”, when the workers went on strike, hundreds of unemployed began to work to reactivate an abandoned municipal road, an initiative that was then stopped by the police; Dolci also initiates an activity of denunciation of the mafia phenomenon and its relations with politics. There are numerous certificates of esteem and solidarity that he receives from important personalities from Italy and abroad, but despite this, for others Danilo Dolci is a dangerous subversive, to be hindered, denigrated, locked up in prison. Yet Dolci does not pose as a guru, boss, or teacher, his working method is based on the conviction that change is based on the involvement and direct participation of those concerned, his idea of progress enhances local culture and skills; he tries, working closely with the people and the most disadvantaged and oppressed groups of western Sicily, to free the dormant creativity in every person, calling this research "maieutic", a term coming from philosophy, precisely from Socratic maieutics: it is "the 'art of the midwife ", every educational act is to bring to light all the inner potentialities of the one who wants to learn, like a mother who wants to give birth to her own child from her womb, so no to notions imparted a priori, yes to help the student to bring their knowledge to light, using dialogue as a tool; however, Socratic maieutics is unidirectional, while in Danilo Dolci's "reciprocal maieutics", knowledge comes out of experience and its sharing, therefore it presupposes the reciprocity of communication. During meetings with farmers and fishermen, the idea was born to build the dam on the Jato River, which is important for the economic development of the area, but also to remove a powerful weapon in the hands of the mafia, an instrument of power which controlled the few available water resources; however the request for "water for all" will be heavily hindered, popular mobilizations and long fasts will be necessary to finally see the project realized: now the dam exists, and others have been built, thus modifying the lives of thousands of people, with the development of numerous companies and cooperatives. Among the many activities of Dolci, thanks to the contribution of international experts, the experience of the Mirto Educational Center, attended by hundreds of children, should be mentioned. Returning to Daphne Phelps and Casa Cuseni, here is a lithograph by Tono Zancanaro, dedicated to the birth of one of Danilo Dolci's daughters, but, among the most important, there is a correspondence between the pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russel and Daphne Phelps, in which the English thinker invited Robert Kitson's niece to participate in the gatherings of progressive intellectuals and literary and scientific personalities of the time, among them, besides Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Carlo Levi, there was Danilo Dolci, sociologist, educator, still recognized today as one of the most important figures of nonviolence worldwide.

post Scriptum:

- the images with Danilo Dolci come from the Casa Cuseni archive: they are cuttings from original periodicals, often full pages, from English newspapers, carefully preserved by Miss Daphne Phelps; these images were also taken by photographing some pages of James McNeish's book, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- the photographs taken in various countries of Sicily, are prior to the covid-19 pandemic;

- thanks to the surgeon colleague dr. Franco Spadaro and his kind wife, Mrs. Mimma Cundari, owners of Casa Cuseni (declared in 1998, Italian National Monument), for their hospitality and availability, having made the Danilo Dolci archive available to me.

Una storia di Sicilia: il Gandhi siciliano (ma siciliano non era…).

Questo racconto fotografico, è connesso, almeno in parte, con quello precedente, il cui anello di congiunzione è rappresentato dalla nipote del pittore Robert Kitson, la signorina Daphne Phelps: lei nella vita era una assistente sociale psichiatrica (lei collaborava con Anna Freud, figlia di Sigmund Freud), alla morte dello zio nel 1948 si trasferì in Sicilia per occuparsi di Casa Cuseni, avendola ereditata: inizialmente la voleva vendere per poi ritornarsene in Inghilterra, invece finì con l’innamorarsi di Taormina e della Sicilia, decidendo di restarvi per il resto della sua vita. Daphne gestiva Casa Cuseni accogliendo ospiti paganti, numerosi sono i nomi illustri di artisti, scrittori, note personalità che vi hanno alloggiato: Danilo Dolci è stato uno di questi ospiti, ed è proprio di lui che desidero parlare. Egli nasce nel 1924 a Sesana (Trieste), dopo una vita un po’ movimentata, nel 1952 si trasferisce a Trappeto (tra Palermo e Trapani), un paese tra i più poveri e disagiati d’Italia: quello stesso anno inizia il primo di numerosi digiuni, coricandosi e digiunando nel letto di un bimbo morto per denutrizione, protesta che terminerà solo quando le autorità si impegneranno a costruire una fogna. Danilo Dolci prosegue con numerose iniziative, dalla pubblicazione di un libro (“Banditi a Partinico”, che mette a conoscenza dell’opinione pubblica delle misere condizioni di vita della Sicilia occidentale, a questo libro poi ne seguiranno molti altri), allo “sciopero alla rovescia”, quando i lavoratori fecero sciopero, centinaia di disoccupati si misero a lavorare per riattivare una strada comunale abbandonata, iniziativa però poi fermata dalla polizia; Dolci avvia anche una attività di denuncia del fenomeno mafioso e dei suoi rapporti con la politica. Numerosi sono gli attestati di stima e solidarietà che egli riceve da importanti personalità provenienti dall’Italia e dall’estero, ma nonostante ciò per altri Danilo Dolci è un pericoloso sovversivo, da ostacolare, denigrare, chiudere in prigione. Eppure Dolci non si atteggia né a santone, capo, od un maestro, il suo metodo di lavoro è basato sulla convinzione che il cambiamento è basato sul coinvolgimento e diretta partecipazione degli interessati, la sua idea di progresso valorizza la cultura e le competenze locali; egli cerca, lavorando a stretto contatto con la gente e le fasce più disagiate ed oppresse della Sicilia occidentale, di liberare la creatività sopita in ogni persona, chiamando tale ricerca “maieutica”, termine proveniente dalla filosofia, precisamente dalla maieutica socratica: è “l’arte della levatrice”, ogni atto educativo è far venire alla luce tutte le potenzialità interiori di colui che vuole imparare, al pari di una madre che vuol far nascere la propria creatura dal suo grembo, quindi no a nozioni impartite a priori, si ad aiutare lo studente a portare alla luce la propria conoscenza, usando il dialogo come strumento; però, la maieutica socratica è unidirezionale, mentre nella “maieutica reciproca” di Danilo Dolci, la conoscenza viene fuori dall’esperienza e dalla sua condivisione, quindi presuppone la reciprocità della comunicazione. Nel corso di riunioni con contadini e pescatori, nasce l’idea di costruire la diga sul fiume Jato, importante per lo sviluppo economico della zona, ma anche togliere un’arma potente in mano alla mafia, che faceva del controllo delle poche risorse idriche disponibili uno strumento di potere, però la richiesta di “acqua per tutti” verrà pesantemente ostacolata, saranno necessarie le mobilitazioni popolari, lunghi digiuni, per vedere infine realizzato il progetto: ora la diga esiste, ed altre sono state poi realizzate, modificando in tal modo la vita di migliaia di persone, con lo svilupparsi di numerose aziende e cooperative. Da menzionare, tra le tante attività di Dolci, grazie al contributo di esperti internazionali, l’esperienza del Centro Educativo di Mirto, frequentato da centinaia di bambini. Ritornando a Daphne Phelps e Casa Cuseni, qui è presente una litografia di Tono Zancanaro, dedicata alla nascita di una delle figlie di Danilo Dolci, ma, cosa tra le più importanti, esiste un carteggio tra il filosofo pacifista Bertrand Russel e Daphne Phelps, nel quale il pensatore inglese invitava la nipote di Robert Kitson a partecipare ai raduni di intellettuali progressisti e personalità letterarie e scientifiche dell’epoca, tra di loro, oltre Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre e Carlo Levi, c’era Danilo Dolci, sociologo, educatore, ancora oggi riconosciuto tra le figure di massimo rilievo della nonviolenza a livello mondiale.

post scriptum:

- le immagini con Danilo Dolci provengono dall'archivio di Casa Cuseni: sono ritagli di giornali originali dell'epoca, spesso pagine intere, provenienti da quotidiani inglesi, accuratamente conservati dalla signorina Daphne Phelps; tali immagini sono state realizzate fotografando anche alcune pagine del libro di James McNeish, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- le fotografie realizzate in diversi paesi della Sicilia, sono antecedenti alla pandemia da covid-19;

- si ringrazia il collega chirurgo dott. Franco Spadaro e la sua gentile consorte, signora Mimma Cundari, proprietari di Casa Cuseni (dichiarata nel 1998, Monumento Nazionale Italiano), per la loro ospitalità e disponibilità, avendo messo a mia disposizione l'archivio relativo a Danilo Dolci.

14

archive of Casa Cuseni, an original newspaper article, preserved by Daphne Phelps, who hosted Danilo Dolci in Taormina.

archivio di Casa Cuseni, un articolo di giornale originale, conservato da Daphne Phelps, che ospitò a Taormina Danilo Dolci.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;

or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;

clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;

oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

……………………………………………………………………….

A story of Sicily: the Sicilian Gandhi (but he was not Sicilian ...).

This photographic story is connected, at least in part, with the previous one, whose link is represented by the nephew of the painter Robert Kitson, Miss Daphne Phelps: in life she was a psychiatric social worker (she collaborated with Anna Freud, daughter by Sigmund Freud), on the death of his uncle in 1948 he moved to Sicily to take care of Casa Cuseni, having inherited it: initially he wanted to sell it and then return to England, instead he ended up falling in love with Taormina and Sicily, deciding to stay there for the rest of his life. Daphne ran Casa Cuseni welcoming paying guests, there are many illustrious names of artists, writers, well-known personalities who have stayed there: Danilo Dolci was one of these guests, and it is precisely about him that I wish to speak. He was born in 1924 in Sesana (Trieste), after a somewhat eventful life, in 1952 he moved to Trappeto (between Palermo and Trapani), a country among the poorest and most disadvantaged in Italy: that same year the first of numerous fasts, going to bed and fasting in the bed of a child who died of malnutrition, a protest that will end only when the authorities undertake to build a sewer. Danilo Dolci continues with numerous initiatives, from the publication of a book ("Banditi a Partinico", which makes public opinion aware of the poor living conditions of western Sicily, to this book and many others will follow), to the "strike at reverses ”, when the workers went on strike, hundreds of unemployed began to work to reactivate an abandoned municipal road, an initiative that was then stopped by the police; Dolci also initiates an activity of denunciation of the mafia phenomenon and its relations with politics. There are numerous certificates of esteem and solidarity that he receives from important personalities from Italy and abroad, but despite this, for others Danilo Dolci is a dangerous subversive, to be hindered, denigrated, locked up in prison. Yet Dolci does not pose as a guru, boss, or teacher, his working method is based on the conviction that change is based on the involvement and direct participation of those concerned, his idea of progress enhances local culture and skills; he tries, working closely with the people and the most disadvantaged and oppressed groups of western Sicily, to free the dormant creativity in every person, calling this research "maieutic", a term coming from philosophy, precisely from Socratic maieutics: it is "the 'art of the midwife ", every educational act is to bring to light all the inner potentialities of the one who wants to learn, like a mother who wants to give birth to her own child from her womb, so no to notions imparted a priori, yes to help the student to bring their knowledge to light, using dialogue as a tool; however, Socratic maieutics is unidirectional, while in Danilo Dolci's "reciprocal maieutics", knowledge comes out of experience and its sharing, therefore it presupposes the reciprocity of communication. During meetings with farmers and fishermen, the idea was born to build the dam on the Jato River, which is important for the economic development of the area, but also to remove a powerful weapon in the hands of the mafia, an instrument of power which controlled the few available water resources; however the request for "water for all" will be heavily hindered, popular mobilizations and long fasts will be necessary to finally see the project realized: now the dam exists, and others have been built, thus modifying the lives of thousands of people, with the development of numerous companies and cooperatives. Among the many activities of Dolci, thanks to the contribution of international experts, the experience of the Mirto Educational Center, attended by hundreds of children, should be mentioned. Returning to Daphne Phelps and Casa Cuseni, here is a lithograph by Tono Zancanaro, dedicated to the birth of one of Danilo Dolci's daughters, but, among the most important, there is a correspondence between the pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russel and Daphne Phelps, in which the English thinker invited Robert Kitson's niece to participate in the gatherings of progressive intellectuals and literary and scientific personalities of the time, among them, besides Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Carlo Levi, there was Danilo Dolci, sociologist, educator, still recognized today as one of the most important figures of nonviolence worldwide.

post Scriptum:

- the images with Danilo Dolci come from the Casa Cuseni archive: they are cuttings from original periodicals, often full pages, from English newspapers, carefully preserved by Miss Daphne Phelps; these images were also taken by photographing some pages of James McNeish's book, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- the photographs taken in various countries of Sicily, are prior to the covid-19 pandemic;

- thanks to the surgeon colleague dr. Franco Spadaro and his kind wife, Mrs. Mimma Cundari, owners of Casa Cuseni (declared in 1998, Italian National Monument), for their hospitality and availability, having made the Danilo Dolci archive available to me.

Una storia di Sicilia: il Gandhi siciliano (ma siciliano non era…).

Questo racconto fotografico, è connesso, almeno in parte, con quello precedente, il cui anello di congiunzione è rappresentato dalla nipote del pittore Robert Kitson, la signorina Daphne Phelps: lei nella vita era una assistente sociale psichiatrica (lei collaborava con Anna Freud, figlia di Sigmund Freud), alla morte dello zio nel 1948 si trasferì in Sicilia per occuparsi di Casa Cuseni, avendola ereditata: inizialmente la voleva vendere per poi ritornarsene in Inghilterra, invece finì con l’innamorarsi di Taormina e della Sicilia, decidendo di restarvi per il resto della sua vita. Daphne gestiva Casa Cuseni accogliendo ospiti paganti, numerosi sono i nomi illustri di artisti, scrittori, note personalità che vi hanno alloggiato: Danilo Dolci è stato uno di questi ospiti, ed è proprio di lui che desidero parlare. Egli nasce nel 1924 a Sesana (Trieste), dopo una vita un po’ movimentata, nel 1952 si trasferisce a Trappeto (tra Palermo e Trapani), un paese tra i più poveri e disagiati d’Italia: quello stesso anno inizia il primo di numerosi digiuni, coricandosi e digiunando nel letto di un bimbo morto per denutrizione, protesta che terminerà solo quando le autorità si impegneranno a costruire una fogna. Danilo Dolci prosegue con numerose iniziative, dalla pubblicazione di un libro (“Banditi a Partinico”, che mette a conoscenza dell’opinione pubblica delle misere condizioni di vita della Sicilia occidentale, a questo libro poi ne seguiranno molti altri), allo “sciopero alla rovescia”, quando i lavoratori fecero sciopero, centinaia di disoccupati si misero a lavorare per riattivare una strada comunale abbandonata, iniziativa però poi fermata dalla polizia; Dolci avvia anche una attività di denuncia del fenomeno mafioso e dei suoi rapporti con la politica. Numerosi sono gli attestati di stima e solidarietà che egli riceve da importanti personalità provenienti dall’Italia e dall’estero, ma nonostante ciò per altri Danilo Dolci è un pericoloso sovversivo, da ostacolare, denigrare, chiudere in prigione. Eppure Dolci non si atteggia né a santone, capo, od un maestro, il suo metodo di lavoro è basato sulla convinzione che il cambiamento è basato sul coinvolgimento e diretta partecipazione degli interessati, la sua idea di progresso valorizza la cultura e le competenze locali; egli cerca, lavorando a stretto contatto con la gente e le fasce più disagiate ed oppresse della Sicilia occidentale, di liberare la creatività sopita in ogni persona, chiamando tale ricerca “maieutica”, termine proveniente dalla filosofia, precisamente dalla maieutica socratica: è “l’arte della levatrice”, ogni atto educativo è far venire alla luce tutte le potenzialità interiori di colui che vuole imparare, al pari di una madre che vuol far nascere la propria creatura dal suo grembo, quindi no a nozioni impartite a priori, si ad aiutare lo studente a portare alla luce la propria conoscenza, usando il dialogo come strumento; però, la maieutica socratica è unidirezionale, mentre nella “maieutica reciproca” di Danilo Dolci, la conoscenza viene fuori dall’esperienza e dalla sua condivisione, quindi presuppone la reciprocità della comunicazione. Nel corso di riunioni con contadini e pescatori, nasce l’idea di costruire la diga sul fiume Jato, importante per lo sviluppo economico della zona, ma anche togliere un’arma potente in mano alla mafia, che faceva del controllo delle poche risorse idriche disponibili uno strumento di potere, però la richiesta di “acqua per tutti” verrà pesantemente ostacolata, saranno necessarie le mobilitazioni popolari, lunghi digiuni, per vedere infine realizzato il progetto: ora la diga esiste, ed altre sono state poi realizzate, modificando in tal modo la vita di migliaia di persone, con lo svilupparsi di numerose aziende e cooperative. Da menzionare, tra le tante attività di Dolci, grazie al contributo di esperti internazionali, l’esperienza del Centro Educativo di Mirto, frequentato da centinaia di bambini. Ritornando a Daphne Phelps e Casa Cuseni, qui è presente una litografia di Tono Zancanaro, dedicata alla nascita di una delle figlie di Danilo Dolci, ma, cosa tra le più importanti, esiste un carteggio tra il filosofo pacifista Bertrand Russel e Daphne Phelps, nel quale il pensatore inglese invitava la nipote di Robert Kitson a partecipare ai raduni di intellettuali progressisti e personalità letterarie e scientifiche dell’epoca, tra di loro, oltre Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre e Carlo Levi, c’era Danilo Dolci, sociologo, educatore, ancora oggi riconosciuto tra le figure di massimo rilievo della nonviolenza a livello mondiale.

post scriptum:

- le immagini con Danilo Dolci provengono dall'archivio di Casa Cuseni: sono ritagli di giornali originali dell'epoca, spesso pagine intere, provenienti da quotidiani inglesi, accuratamente conservati dalla signorina Daphne Phelps; tali immagini sono state realizzate fotografando anche alcune pagine del libro di James McNeish, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- le fotografie realizzate in diversi paesi della Sicilia, sono antecedenti alla pandemia da covid-19;

- si ringrazia il collega chirurgo dott. Franco Spadaro e la sua gentile consorte, signora Mimma Cundari, proprietari di Casa Cuseni (dichiarata nel 1998, Monumento Nazionale Italiano), per la loro ospitalità e disponibilità, avendo messo a mia disposizione l'archivio relativo a Danilo Dolci.

Right under his nose - 28|52 wfnd by Stéphanie ~ SGV Photography

3 6

The words "Black lives matter" were painted this week by the city of New York right in front of the Trump tower! Of course the president did not like it and said it was a symbol of hate denigrating Manhattan's finest street (the 5th Avenue)... No comment!

وہی اک گلاب امید کا میری شاخ جان پر کھلا نہیں by C@MARADERIE

14 62

Its close to midnight here in RIYADH. Nusrat is singing 'کسی دا یار نہ بچھڑے " and i have been listening it since morning. I am feeling dizzy and my morale is down. I always loved to live alone but this time it is stinging hard. In order to get out of this bleak situation i decided to upload a new flickr item but this song is penetrating deep inside my soul. I tried to find a positive outcome of this beautiful flock of wild flowers but moment by moment کسی دا یار نہ بچھڑے " is thrashing my heart like a hammer striking a nail. The ephemeral love is denigrating my soul.

رانجھے بن گے عشق دے روگے

کن پروا کے بن گے جوگی

i don't want to be jogi. I like to live like this green flora that stays green whatever the condition is. But, I am already frail. Tears are gathering inside my eyes

........

I am in need of a shoulder.........

I neeed a shoulder.......

..

Join me on FACEBOOK

A Self-Described Billionaire President Didn't Pay His Fair Share. This Is Why We Have Economic Inequality. by outtacontext

13 3

Speculation about President Trump’s wealth, its sources, and the amount of taxes he’s paid have a long history. But they became especially important when he announced his run for the presidency in 2015. Since that time, he has vowed to release his tax returns as soon as the IRS completes his audit. That audit has been going on for almost a decade. To date, the American public has known little about Trump’s financial affairs despite efforts to prod him to divulge that information. His response: “Part of the beauty of me is that I am very rich.”

Less than a week before the President’s COVID-19 diagnosis, The New York Times published a series of articles about those tax returns. The bombshell headlines told us Trump paid only $750 in taxes for both 2016 and 2017. And he paid no taxes for 10 of the 15 years previous to 2016.

Trump has often boasted of his ability to use the system and tax code to avoid paying. In fact, he believes it is the American way. Perhaps for the rich, but not the lower middle class and poor. The Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy reported that 60 Fortune 500 companies paid no taxes in 2018 on profits of $79 billion. These included Amazon, Netflix, Halliburton, Delta Air Lines, and IBM. If they had paid the requisite tax rate of 21%, they would have owed the government $16.4 billion.

Economic inequality in the United States has risen consistently for the last 50 years. In 1968, 43% of the top fifth of earners made half of the nation’s income. In 2018, that rose to 52%. Wealthy consumption devalues human capital, and this adversely affects health, life satisfaction, and economic growth. Society is marked by extreme stratifications between the rich and the masses. And, as David Brooks writes in The Atlantic, social trust disintegrates.

This is where we are right now. No one trusts anyone. High-trust societies according to Francis Fukuyama, a political scientist, political economist, and writer, exhibit spontaneous sociability. People can organize quickly, initiate action, and sacrifice for the common good. High-trust societies have lower economic inequality because citizens feel responsible for the well-being of society. And they are willing to invest their time and money (often through taxes) to insure this happens. During Donald Trump’s presidency, “everyone for themselves” exemplifies American society. There is distrust of those outside our own communities, and discontent and suspicion overwhelm us.

In addition, capitalism, the overriding American economic ideology, has become suspect. Trump touts his great economy by using only the stock market as his rubric. And the poor and lower middle class (few of whom have the excess capital to invest) are not only missing out, they are being ignored. So when it’s revealed that Trump and many corporations paid little or no taxes, it reinforces a lack of trust in others and in our institutions. It also makes us angry. This sits atop social and racial inequality which has existed for centuries and the pandemic’s magical thinking over fact-based science.

You might have missed this example of President Trump’s self-interest in the maelstrom of his continuous assaults in the lead-up to the election. News cycles have come in quick succession. So quick we’ve had little time to absorb them, let alone react to them.

Just this month, Trump has called the Democratic vice-presidential nominee a “monster,” retweeted images of a man being shot, suggested that Gold Star families may have infected him with the virus, amplified a conspiracy theory questioning Osama bin Laden’s death, openly denigrated his own attorney general, attacked the nation’s leading infectious-disease expert, pulled out of a presidential debate, announced a complete withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, called off talks for a stimulus package and restarted the talks calling for more spending than his party had embraced.

The Washington Post, October 15, 2020

Economic inequality is a symptom of our aristocracy’s greed and desire to game the system. "What's mine is mine. I earned it." Legislators who push their own self-interest and that of their party have eroded trust in our government. Ironic, since Trump made promises to the disenfranchised [whites] to drain the swamp. Not only has he failed to do that, he has enlarged that morass, engulfing everyone. While Trump’s rise to power is emblematic of broader forces in play for decades, it’s because of his own ego and failures that we find ourselves in this miserable place right now.

In the short term, we have one chance to change our trajectory: the upcoming election. But the frictions driving our society to disintegrate will not end on November 3. It will take a concerted effort by all of us to earn back trust in each other, in our government, and in our financial institutions. Social, racial, and income equality must come both from the top down and from our individual efforts. Every one of us is responsible for what comes next.

Feel free to pass this poster on. It's free to download here (click on the down arrow just to the lower right of the image).

See the rest of the posters from the Chamomile Tea Party! Digital high res downloads are free here (click the down arrow on the lower right side of the image). Other options are available. And join our Facebook group.

Follow the history of our country's political intransigence from 2010-2018 through a six-part exhibit of these posters on Google Arts & Culture.

BN-1 and 2 IRM_0166 7-31-17 by eyepilot13

14

7/31/17: Ah the 90's! When you could still catch stuff like this outside a museum (not to denigrate museums mind you I love IRM!). For that brief shining moment before one of the mergers from hell. BN had the presumption to bring back vintage F and E units for executive service... beats the hell out of any Heritage GEs, but what do I know!... Love the chrome BN on the front! Then BNSF came along with everything become a GE or GEVO and ugly ass orange puked onto everything. Haven't caught an SD70MAC Exec in ages!

I hate/Love BNSF...Still a very cool efficient modern railroad and as much as I hate to admit it a few 4400HP monsters accelerating a giant stackTrain on he raceTrack or Chlli Sub is an impressive sight. But there is very little hope of seeing standard cabs on the mainline these days and I like variety. But I know the Industry is about Profits not variety for some dumbAss train watcher! Money (I know) rules the world, but at what cost to our humanity and Souls?

13

an original newspaper article, about Danilo Dolci, with James McNeish's book on the life of Danilo Dolci "fire under the ashes", preserved by Daphne Phelps, who hosted Danilo Dolci in Taormina (Casa Cuseni archive).

un articolo di giornale originale, che parla di Danilo Dolci, con sopra il libro sulla vita di Danilo Dolci "fuoco sotto la cenere" di James McNeish, conservati da Daphne Phelps, che ospitò a Taormina Danilo Dolci (archivio di Casa Cuseni).

-----------------------------------------------------------------

click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;

or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;

clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;

oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

……………………………………………………………………….

A story of Sicily: the Sicilian Gandhi (but he was not Sicilian ...).

This photographic story is connected, at least in part, with the previous one, whose link is represented by the nephew of the painter Robert Kitson, Miss Daphne Phelps: in life she was a psychiatric social worker (she collaborated with Anna Freud, daughter by Sigmund Freud), on the death of his uncle in 1948 he moved to Sicily to take care of Casa Cuseni, having inherited it: initially he wanted to sell it and then return to England, instead he ended up falling in love with Taormina and Sicily, deciding to stay there for the rest of his life. Daphne ran Casa Cuseni welcoming paying guests, there are many illustrious names of artists, writers, well-known personalities who have stayed there: Danilo Dolci was one of these guests, and it is precisely about him that I wish to speak. He was born in 1924 in Sesana (Trieste), after a somewhat eventful life, in 1952 he moved to Trappeto (between Palermo and Trapani), a country among the poorest and most disadvantaged in Italy: that same year the first of numerous fasts, going to bed and fasting in the bed of a child who died of malnutrition, a protest that will end only when the authorities undertake to build a sewer. Danilo Dolci continues with numerous initiatives, from the publication of a book ("Banditi a Partinico", which makes public opinion aware of the poor living conditions of western Sicily, to this book and many others will follow), to the "strike at reverses ”, when the workers went on strike, hundreds of unemployed began to work to reactivate an abandoned municipal road, an initiative that was then stopped by the police; Dolci also initiates an activity of denunciation of the mafia phenomenon and its relations with politics. There are numerous certificates of esteem and solidarity that he receives from important personalities from Italy and abroad, but despite this, for others Danilo Dolci is a dangerous subversive, to be hindered, denigrated, locked up in prison. Yet Dolci does not pose as a guru, boss, or teacher, his working method is based on the conviction that change is based on the involvement and direct participation of those concerned, his idea of progress enhances local culture and skills; he tries, working closely with the people and the most disadvantaged and oppressed groups of western Sicily, to free the dormant creativity in every person, calling this research "maieutic", a term coming from philosophy, precisely from Socratic maieutics: it is "the 'art of the midwife ", every educational act is to bring to light all the inner potentialities of the one who wants to learn, like a mother who wants to give birth to her own child from her womb, so no to notions imparted a priori, yes to help the student to bring their knowledge to light, using dialogue as a tool; however, Socratic maieutics is unidirectional, while in Danilo Dolci's "reciprocal maieutics", knowledge comes out of experience and its sharing, therefore it presupposes the reciprocity of communication. During meetings with farmers and fishermen, the idea was born to build the dam on the Jato River, which is important for the economic development of the area, but also to remove a powerful weapon in the hands of the mafia, an instrument of power which controlled the few available water resources; however the request for "water for all" will be heavily hindered, popular mobilizations and long fasts will be necessary to finally see the project realized: now the dam exists, and others have been built, thus modifying the lives of thousands of people, with the development of numerous companies and cooperatives. Among the many activities of Dolci, thanks to the contribution of international experts, the experience of the Mirto Educational Center, attended by hundreds of children, should be mentioned. Returning to Daphne Phelps and Casa Cuseni, here is a lithograph by Tono Zancanaro, dedicated to the birth of one of Danilo Dolci's daughters, but, among the most important, there is a correspondence between the pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russel and Daphne Phelps, in which the English thinker invited Robert Kitson's niece to participate in the gatherings of progressive intellectuals and literary and scientific personalities of the time, among them, besides Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Carlo Levi, there was Danilo Dolci, sociologist, educator, still recognized today as one of the most important figures of nonviolence worldwide.

post Scriptum:

- the images with Danilo Dolci come from the Casa Cuseni archive: they are cuttings from original periodicals, often full pages, from English newspapers, carefully preserved by Miss Daphne Phelps; these images were also taken by photographing some pages of James McNeish's book, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- the photographs taken in various countries of Sicily, are prior to the covid-19 pandemic;

- thanks to the surgeon colleague dr. Franco Spadaro and his kind wife, Mrs. Mimma Cundari, owners of Casa Cuseni (declared in 1998, Italian National Monument), for their hospitality and availability, having made the Danilo Dolci archive available to me.

Una storia di Sicilia: il Gandhi siciliano (ma siciliano non era…).

Questo racconto fotografico, è connesso, almeno in parte, con quello precedente, il cui anello di congiunzione è rappresentato dalla nipote del pittore Robert Kitson, la signorina Daphne Phelps: lei nella vita era una assistente sociale psichiatrica (lei collaborava con Anna Freud, figlia di Sigmund Freud), alla morte dello zio nel 1948 si trasferì in Sicilia per occuparsi di Casa Cuseni, avendola ereditata: inizialmente la voleva vendere per poi ritornarsene in Inghilterra, invece finì con l’innamorarsi di Taormina e della Sicilia, decidendo di restarvi per il resto della sua vita. Daphne gestiva Casa Cuseni accogliendo ospiti paganti, numerosi sono i nomi illustri di artisti, scrittori, note personalità che vi hanno alloggiato: Danilo Dolci è stato uno di questi ospiti, ed è proprio di lui che desidero parlare. Egli nasce nel 1924 a Sesana (Trieste), dopo una vita un po’ movimentata, nel 1952 si trasferisce a Trappeto (tra Palermo e Trapani), un paese tra i più poveri e disagiati d’Italia: quello stesso anno inizia il primo di numerosi digiuni, coricandosi e digiunando nel letto di un bimbo morto per denutrizione, protesta che terminerà solo quando le autorità si impegneranno a costruire una fogna. Danilo Dolci prosegue con numerose iniziative, dalla pubblicazione di un libro (“Banditi a Partinico”, che mette a conoscenza dell’opinione pubblica delle misere condizioni di vita della Sicilia occidentale, a questo libro poi ne seguiranno molti altri), allo “sciopero alla rovescia”, quando i lavoratori fecero sciopero, centinaia di disoccupati si misero a lavorare per riattivare una strada comunale abbandonata, iniziativa però poi fermata dalla polizia; Dolci avvia anche una attività di denuncia del fenomeno mafioso e dei suoi rapporti con la politica. Numerosi sono gli attestati di stima e solidarietà che egli riceve da importanti personalità provenienti dall’Italia e dall’estero, ma nonostante ciò per altri Danilo Dolci è un pericoloso sovversivo, da ostacolare, denigrare, chiudere in prigione. Eppure Dolci non si atteggia né a santone, capo, od un maestro, il suo metodo di lavoro è basato sulla convinzione che il cambiamento è basato sul coinvolgimento e diretta partecipazione degli interessati, la sua idea di progresso valorizza la cultura e le competenze locali; egli cerca, lavorando a stretto contatto con la gente e le fasce più disagiate ed oppresse della Sicilia occidentale, di liberare la creatività sopita in ogni persona, chiamando tale ricerca “maieutica”, termine proveniente dalla filosofia, precisamente dalla maieutica socratica: è “l’arte della levatrice”, ogni atto educativo è far venire alla luce tutte le potenzialità interiori di colui che vuole imparare, al pari di una madre che vuol far nascere la propria creatura dal suo grembo, quindi no a nozioni impartite a priori, si ad aiutare lo studente a portare alla luce la propria conoscenza, usando il dialogo come strumento; però, la maieutica socratica è unidirezionale, mentre nella “maieutica reciproca” di Danilo Dolci, la conoscenza viene fuori dall’esperienza e dalla sua condivisione, quindi presuppone la reciprocità della comunicazione. Nel corso di riunioni con contadini e pescatori, nasce l’idea di costruire la diga sul fiume Jato, importante per lo sviluppo economico della zona, ma anche togliere un’arma potente in mano alla mafia, che faceva del controllo delle poche risorse idriche disponibili uno strumento di potere, però la richiesta di “acqua per tutti” verrà pesantemente ostacolata, saranno necessarie le mobilitazioni popolari, lunghi digiuni, per vedere infine realizzato il progetto: ora la diga esiste, ed altre sono state poi realizzate, modificando in tal modo la vita di migliaia di persone, con lo svilupparsi di numerose aziende e cooperative. Da menzionare, tra le tante attività di Dolci, grazie al contributo di esperti internazionali, l’esperienza del Centro Educativo di Mirto, frequentato da centinaia di bambini. Ritornando a Daphne Phelps e Casa Cuseni, qui è presente una litografia di Tono Zancanaro, dedicata alla nascita di una delle figlie di Danilo Dolci, ma, cosa tra le più importanti, esiste un carteggio tra il filosofo pacifista Bertrand Russel e Daphne Phelps, nel quale il pensatore inglese invitava la nipote di Robert Kitson a partecipare ai raduni di intellettuali progressisti e personalità letterarie e scientifiche dell’epoca, tra di loro, oltre Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre e Carlo Levi, c’era Danilo Dolci, sociologo, educatore, ancora oggi riconosciuto tra le figure di massimo rilievo della nonviolenza a livello mondiale.

post scriptum:

- le immagini con Danilo Dolci provengono dall'archivio di Casa Cuseni: sono ritagli di giornali originali dell'epoca, spesso pagine intere, provenienti da quotidiani inglesi, accuratamente conservati dalla signorina Daphne Phelps; tali immagini sono state realizzate fotografando anche alcune pagine del libro di James McNeish, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- le fotografie realizzate in diversi paesi della Sicilia, sono antecedenti alla pandemia da covid-19;

- si ringrazia il collega chirurgo dott. Franco Spadaro e la sua gentile consorte, signora Mimma Cundari, proprietari di Casa Cuseni (dichiarata nel 1998, Monumento Nazionale Italiano), per la loro ospitalità e disponibilità, avendo messo a mia disposizione l'archivio relativo a Danilo Dolci.

Anti-Establishment. by PHOTOGRAPHY by DM & DBM.

9 1

An anti-establishment view or belief is one which stands in opposition to the conventional social, political, and economic principles of a society. The term was first used in the modern sense in 1958, by the British magazine New Statesman to refer to its political and social agenda. Antiestablishmentarianism (or anti-establishmentarianism) is an expression for such a political philosophy.

In the UK anti-establishment figures and groups are seen as those who argue or act against the ruling class. Having an established church, in England, a British monarchy, an aristocracy, and an unelected upper house in Parliament made up in part by hereditary nobles, the UK has a clearly definable[citation needed] Establishment against which anti-establishment figures can be contrasted. In particular, satirical humour is commonly used to undermine the deference shown by the majority of the population towards those who govern them. Examples of British anti-establishment satire include much of the humour of Peter Cook and Ben Elton; novels such as Rumpole of the Bailey; magazines such as Private Eye; and television programmes like Spitting Image, That Was The Week That Was, and The Prisoner (see also the satire boom of the 1960s). Anti-establishment themes also can be seen in the novels of writers such as Will Self.

However, by operating through the arts and media, the line between politics and culture is blurred, so that pigeonholing figures such as Banksy as either anti-establishment or counter-culture figures can be difficult. The tabloid newspapers such as The Sun, are less subtle, and commonly report on the sex-lives of the Royals simply because it sells newspapers, but in the process have been described as having anti-establishment views that have weakened traditional institutions. On the other hand, as time passes, anti-establishment figures sometimes end up becoming part of the Establishment, as Mick Jagger, the Rolling Stones frontman, became a Knight in 2003, or when The Who frontman Roger Daltrey was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 in recognition of both his music and his work for charity.

Anti-establishment in the United States began in the 1940s and continued through the 1950s.

Many World War II veterans, who had seen horrors and inhumanities, began to question every aspect of life, including its meaning. Urged to return to "normal lives" and plagued by post traumatic stress disorder (discussing it was "not manly"), in which many of them went on to found the outlaw motorcycle club Hells Angels. Some veterans, who founded the Beat Movement, were denigrated as Beatniks and accused of being "downbeat" on everything. Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote a Beat autobiography that cited his wartime service.

Citizens had also begun to question authority, especially after the Gary Powers U-2 Incident, wherein President Eisenhower repeatedly assured people the United States was not spying on Russia, then was caught in a blatant lie. This general dissatisfaction was popularized by Peggy Lee's laconic pop song "Is That All There Is?", but remained unspoken and unfocused. It was not until the Baby Boomers came along in huge numbers that protest became organized, who were named by the Beats as "little hipsters".

"Anti-establishment" became a buzzword of the tumultuous 1960s. Young people raised in comparative luxury saw many wrongs perpetuated by society and began to question "the Establishment". Contentious issues included the ongoing Vietnam War with no clear goal or end point, the constant military build-up and diversion of funds for the Cold War, perpetual widespread poverty being ignored, money-wasting boondoggles like pork barrel projects and the Space Race, festering race issues, a stultifying education system, repressive laws and harsh sentences for casual drug use, and a general malaise among the older generation. On the other side, "Middle America" often regarded questions as accusations, and saw the younger generation as spoiled, drugged-out, sex-crazed, unambitious slackers.

Anti-establishment debates were common because they touched on everyday aspects of life. Even innocent questions could escalate into angry diatribes. For example, "Why do we spend millions on a foreign war and a space program when our schools are falling apart?" would be answered with "We need to keep our military strong and ready to stop the Communists from taking over the world." As in any debate, there were valid and unsupported arguments on both sides. "Make love not war" invoked "America, love it or leave it."

As the 1960s simmered, the anti-Establishment adopted conventions in opposition to the Establishment. T-shirts and blue jeans became the uniform of the young because their parents wore collar shirts and slacks. Drug use, with its illegal panache, was favored over the legal consumption of alcohol. Promoting peace and love was the antidote to promulgating hatred and war. Living in genteel poverty was more "honest" than amassing a nest egg and a house in the suburbs. Rock 'n roll was played loudly over easy listening. Dodging the draft was passive resistance to traditional military service. Dancing was free-style, not learned in a ballroom. Over time, anti-establishment messages crept into popular culture: songs, fashion, movies, lifestyle choices, television.

The emphasis on freedom allowed previously hushed conversations about sex, politics, or religion to be openly discussed. A wave of radical liberation movements for minority groups came out of the 1960s, including second-wave feminism; Black Power, Red Power, and the Chicano Movement; and gay liberation. These movements differed from previous efforts to improve minority rights by their opposition to respectability politics and militant tone. Programs were put in place to deal with inequities: Equal Opportunity Employment, the Head Start Program, enforcement of the Civil Rights Act, busing, and others. But the widespread dissemination of new ideas also sparked a backlash and resurgence in conservative religions, new segregated private schools, anti-gay and anti-abortion legislation, and other reversals. Extremists[clarification needed] tended to be heard more because they made good copy for newspapers and television.[citation needed] In many ways, the angry debates of the 1960s led to modern right-wing talk radio and coalitions for "traditional family values".

As the 1960s passed, society had changed to the point that the definition of the Establishment had blurred, and the term "anti-establishment" seemed to fall out of use.

In recent years, with the rise of the populist right, the term anti-establishment has tended to refer to both left and right-wing movements expressing dissatisfaction with mainstream institutions. For those on the right, this can be fueled by feelings of alienation from major institutions such as the government, corporations, media, and education system, which are perceived as holding progressive social norms, an inversion of the meaning formerly associated with the term. This can be accounted for by a perceived cultural and institutional shift to the left by many on the right. According to Pew Research, Western European populist parties from both sides of the ideological spectrum tapped into anti-establishment sentiment in 2017, "from the Brexit referendum to national elections in Italy." Sarah Kendzior of QZ opines that "The term "anti-establishment" has lost all meaning," citing a campaign video from then candidate Donald Trump titled "Fighting the Establishment." The term anti-establishment has tended to refer to Right-wing populist movements, including nationalist movements and anti-lockdown protests, since Donald Trump and the global populist wave, starting as far back as 2015 and as recently as 2021.

What is just? by gaeia

13

What is fair, when you enter a new country?

Trying to denigrate what is seen rear slums?

Why not integrate and enjoy your life sentry.

Killing one another for hundred years' glum,

It won't get you love, respect or local gentry.

Gaeia

wieszać na kimś psy by Kazimierz Pietruszewski Sr

6 1

bad-mouth someone

drag someone through the mud

to defame someone

to denigrate

literally: to hang dogs on someone

Simply Red by John Russell

15 26

I know that some people mist their flowers in order to achieve water drop shots, and that's okay, I do not denigrate the practice.

My personal rule of the game though is that I cannot capture water drops on my flowers unless they are natural, either from dew or from rain.

.

My photographs and videos and any derivative works are my private property and are copyright © by me, John Russell (aka “Zoom Lens”) and ALL my rights, including my exclusive rights, are reserved. ANY use without my permission in writing is forbidden by law.

Wien, 1. Bezirk (the art of historic institutions in the core of downtown Vienna), Wiener Staatsoper, Ópera Estatal de Viena, L'opéra d’État de Vienne, Vienna State Opera, Opera Wiedeńska (Philharmonikerstraße/Kärntner Straße/Herbert-von-Karajan-Platz) by Alfred Lex

14 12

La Donna è mobile (Rigoletto)

History of the Vienna State Opera

132 years house on the Ring

(you can see pictures by clicking on the link at the end of page!)

State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1901

About three and a half centuries, until the early Baroque period, the tradition of Viennese opera goes back. Emperor Franz Joseph I decreed in December 1857 to tear down the old city walls and fortifications around the city center of Vienna and to lay out a wide boulevard with new buildings for culture and politics, the ring road.

The two Court Theatres (a speech and a musical theater) should find a new place on the ring. For the Imperial and Royal Court Opera House was chosen a prominent place in the immediate area of the former Kärntnertortheatre. This by the public that much loved opera theater was demolished in 1709 due to its confinement .

State Opera (K.K. Court Opera) 1903

The new opera house was built by the Viennese architect August Sicardsburg, who designed the basic plan, and Eduard van der Null, who designed the interior decoration. But other eminent artists had been involved: just think of Moritz von Schwind, who painted the frescoes in the foyer and the famous "Magic Flute", cycle of frescoes in the loggia. The two architects did not experience the opening of "their" opera house any more. The sensitive van der Null committed suicide since the Wiener (Viennes people) denigrated the new house as lacking in style, his friend Sicardsburg succumbed a little later to a stroke.

1869 - 1955

On 25 May 1869 the House was with Mozart's DON JUAN in the presence of Emperor Franz Joseph, the highest building owner, and Empress Elisabeth opened.

However, with the artistic charisma under the first directors Franz von Dingelstedt, Johann Herbeck, Franz Jauner and Wilhelm Jahn grew the popularity of the building. A first highlight experienced the Vienna Opera under the director Gustav Mahler, renewing the outdated performance system from scratch, strengthening precision and ensemble spirit and also using significant visual artists (including Alfred Roller) for the shaping of the new stage aesthetic.

In the ten-year-period of his Directorate (1897-1907) continued Gustav Mahler, this very day, in the concert halls of the world as the most important member of a Symphony Orchestra at the turn of the 20th century omnipresent, the intensive fostering of Wagner, Mozart's operas and Beethoven's Fidelio were redesigned, the with Richard Strauss initiated connection to Verdi was held upright. Austrian composers were promoted (Hugo Wolf), the Court Opera was opened to European modernism.

Image: Emperor Franz Joseph I and Emperor Wilhelm II during a gala performance at the Vienna Court Opera in 1900 resulting from the "Book of the Emperor", edited by Max Herzig.

Technique: Lithography

from www.aeiou.at

In addition to the classics of the Italian repertoire were and are especially Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss (himself 1919-1924 director of the House), the musical protection gods of the Vienna State Opera.

staatsoper_81.jpg (28138 bytes)

The modern also always had its place: the twenties and thirties witnessed the Vienna premieres of Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Cardillac Hindemith, Korngold MIRACLE OF Héliane and Berg's Wozzeck (under President Clemens Krauss). This tradition was interrupted with the seizure of power by the National Socialists, yes, after the devastating bomb hits, on 12 March 1945 the house on the ring largely devastating, the care of the art form itself was doubtful.

The Viennese, who had preserved a lively cultural life during the war, were deeply shocked to see the symbol of the Austrian musical life in ruins.

But the spirit of the opera was not destroyed. On 1 May 1945 "State Opera Volksoper" was opened with a brilliant performance of Mozart's THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, on 6 October 1945 was followed by the re-opening of the hastily restored Theater an der Wien with Beethoven's Fidelio. Thus there were two venues for the next ten years, while the actual main building was rebuilt at great expense.

staatsoper_84.jpg (14707 bytes)

Visitors flock to the opera. Reopening on 5th November, 1955.

As early as 24 May 1945 the State Secretary of Public Works, Julius Raab, had announced the reconstruction of the Vienna State Opera, which should be placed in the hands of the Austrian architects Erich Boltenstern and Otto Prossinger. Only the main façade, the grand staircase and the Schwindfoyer (evanescence foyer) had been spared from the bombs - with a new auditorium and modernized technology, the Vienna State Opera was brilliant with Beethoven's Fidelio under Karl Böhm on 5 November 1955 reopened. The opening ceremonies were broadcasted from Austrian television and in the whole world at the same time as a sign of life of the resurrected 2nd Republic understood.

staatsoper_83.jpg (33866 bytes)

State ceremony to the reopening on 5 November 1955. On the far right under the box of the Federal President a television camera of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation is visible which broadcasted the event. Image from © www.staatsvertrag.at / ÖGZ / Cermak

1955 to 1992

The dictum that the Vienna State Opera survives every director, is attributed to Egon Seefehlner which himself for many years run the businessses of the house. And yet marked he and the thirty-one other directors of the Vienna State Opera since 1869, great musicians or musical administrators, in their own way the profile of this world-famous institution:

staatsoper_82.jpg (13379 bytes)

Performance for the reopening of the Vienna State Opera on 5 November, 1955.

After the Second World War there were first the conductors directors Karl Böhm and Herbert von Karajan - the latter insisted on the title "Artistic Director" and opened the Ensemble house to the international singer market, had the opera rehearsed in original language and oriented his plans to "co-productions" with foreign opera houses, however, which were only realized after his term.

It followed as directors Egon Hilbert, Heinrich Reif-Gintl, Rudolf Gamsjäger and the mentioned Egon Seefehlner, who was appointed for a second time at the top of the house after the departure of his successor in office Lorin Maazel. Claus Helmut Drese (State Opera director from 1986 to 1991) stood with Claudio Abbado an internationally renowned music director by his side. At the beginning of the 90s the forrmer star baritone Eberhard Waechter, at that time director of the Volksoper (People's Opera), charged with the direction. Only seven months have been granted to him as a director.

The era Ioan Holender (1992 to 2010)

After Waechter's tragic death in March 1992 took over general secretary Ioan Holender, a former singer (baritone) and owner of a singer Agency, the office to continue the tradition of perhaps the most important opera institution in the world over the millennium to 2010.

His play plan design relies besides an extremely wide repertoire with the columns Mozart, Wagner, Verdi and Strauss mainly on premieres. Mention may be made of Bellini's I Puritani (1993 /94), Massenet Hérodiade (1994 /95), Verdi's Jerusalem and Britten's PETER GRIMES (1995 /96), Verdi's Stiffelio and Enescu OEDIPE (1996 /97), Rossini's GUILLAUME TELL and Lehár's operetta THE MERRY WIDOW (1998/99) and Schoenberg's THE JAKOBSLEITER, Hiller's PETER PAN, Donizetti's ROBERTO DEVEREUX, Britten's Billy Budd, Verdi's Nabucco (2000/ 01), Bellini's LA SONNAMBULA, Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Janácek's Jenufa (2001/02), Verdi's SIMON BOCCANEGRA, Krenek's Jonny spielt auf, Donizetti's La Favorite, Hiller's PINOCCHIO, Wagner's TRISTAN UND ISOLDE (2002/ 03), Verdi's FALSTAFF, Wagner's FLYING DUTCHMAN and PARSIFAL, Strauss's Daphne (2003/ 04) and the world premiere of the original French version of Verdi's DON CARLOS (2003/ 04). A particular success of the recent past, the rediscovery of Fromental Halévy's La Juive Grand (1999 ) must be considered. Two premières concerned 1995 Adriana Hölszky's THE WALLS (co-production with the Vienna Festival at the Theater an der Wien ) and Alfred Schnittke's Gesualdo. On 15 June 2002 also THE GIANT OF STONE FIELD (Music: Peter Turrini: Friedrich Cerha libretto) premiered with great success, another commissioned work of the Vienna State Opera.

Image : Vienna State Opera

In recent years it came up, in each case on 18 May, the anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler, to concerts of the Vienna Philharmonic at the Vienna State Opera. These were under the direction of Seiji Ozawa (who since the 2002 /03 season the Vienna State Opera director Holender as music director of the house stands to the side) (1995), Carlo Maria Giulini (1996), Riccardo Muti (1997), Lorin Maazel (1998), Zubin Mehta (1999), Giuseppe Sinopoli (2000 ), Riccardo Muti (2001) and again Seiji Ozawa (2004).

Furthermore, was on 16 June, 2002 for the first time by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (conducted by Seiji Ozawa) a CONCERT FOR AUSTRIA organized. More CONCERTS FOR AUSTRIA followed on 26 October 2003 (Zubin Mehta) and 26 October 2004 (under Valery Gergiev).

At the Theater an der Wien Mozart's Così fan tutte experienced a triumphant new production conducted by Riccardo Muti. This Mozart cycle under Muti continued with DON GIOVANNI and 2001 LE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO, 1999.

more...

Directors since 1869

Franz von Dingelstedt 07/01/1867 - 18/12/1870

Opening 5/25/1869

Johann von Herbeck 12/19/1870 - 30/04/1875

Franz von Jauner 01/05/1875 - 18/06/1880

Director College:

Karl Mayerhofer, Gustav Walter and

Emil Scaria 19.06.1880 - 31.12.1880

Wilhelm Jahn 01.01.1881 - 10.14.1897

Gustav Mahler 10/15/1897 - 31/12/1907

Felix Weingartner 01.01.1908 - 28.02.1911

Hans Gregor 01.03.1911 - 14.11.1918

Franz Schalk 15.11.1918 - 08.15.1919

Richard Strauss/Franz Schalk 16/08/1919 - 31/10/1924

Franz Schalk 1/11/1924 - 8/31/1929

Clemens Krauss 01/09/1929 - 15/12/1934

Felix Weingartner, 01.01.1935 - 08.31.1936

Erwin Kerber 09/01/1936 - 08/31/1940

Henry K. Strohm 09.01.1940 - 19.04.1941

Walter Thomas 02.01.1941 - 19.04.1941

Ernst August Schneider 04/20/1941 - 02/28/1943

Karl Böhm 03.01.1943 - 30.04.1945

Alfred Jerger,

State Opera in the Volksoper 01.05.1945 - 14.06.1945

Franz Salmhofer,

State Opera in the Theater an der Wien, 18.06.1945 - 31.08.1955

Karl Böhm 01.09.1954 - 31.08.1956

Herbert von Karajan 01.09.1956 - 31.03.1962

Herbert von Karajan/Walter Erich Schäfer 01.04.1962 - 08.06.1963

Herbert von Karajan/Egon Hilbert 09.06.1963 - 31.08.1964

Egon Hilbert 01.09.1964 - 18.01.1968

Heinrich Reif- Gintl 19.01.1968 - 31.08.1972

Rudolf Gamsjager 01.09.1972 - 31.08.1976

Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1976 - 31.08.1982

Lorin Maazel 01.09.1982 - 31.08.1984

Egon Seefehlner 01.09.1984 - 31.08.1986

Dr. Claus Helmut Drese 01.09.1986 - 31.08.1991

Eberhard Waechter 01.09.1991 - 29.03.1992

Ioan Holender 01.04.1992 - 31.08.2010

Dominique Meyer since 01/09/2010

Opera world premieres

Abbreviations:

Od = the Odeon

Ron = Ronacher

TW = the Theater an der Wien

1875 10:03. Goldmark The Queen of Sheba

1877 04:10. Brüller Der Landfriede

1880 26.05. Riedel The Accolade

15.12. Brüller Bianca

1883 04.01. Leschetitzky The first fold

21.02. Bachrich Muzzedin

1884 26.03. Bachrich Heini of Styria

1886 30.03. Hellmesberger jun. Fata Morgana

4:10 . Hager Marffa

19.11. Goldmark Merlin

1887 03:04. Harold pepper

1889 27.03. Fox The Bride King

4:10. Smareglia The vassal of Szigeth

1891 19:02. Mader Refugees

1892 01.01. J. Strauss Ritter Pasman

16.02. Massenet Werther

19.11. Bulk Signor Formica

1894 20.01. Heuberger Miriam

1896 21.03. Goldmark The Cricket on the Hearth

1899 17:01. The Goldmark prisoners of war

1900 22:01. Zemlinsky It was once

1902 28.02. Forster The dot mon

1904 18:02. Wolf The Corregidor

1908 02.01. Goldmark The Winter's Tale

1910 12:04. The musician Bittner

18.05. Goldmark Götz von Berlichingen

1911 09:11. Bittner The mountain lake

1912 16.03. Oberleithner Aphrodite

1913 15.03. Schreker The game works and the Princess

1914 01.04. Schmidt Notre Dame

1916 04:10. R. Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Vienna version)

1917 23.11. Zaiszek-Blankenau Ferdinand and Luise

1919 10.10. R. Strauss Die Frau ohne Schatten

1920 13.05. Weingartner Champion Andrea/The Village School

1921 09.04. The Bittner Kohlhaymerin

1924 20.09. Beethoven/R. Strauss The Ruins of Athens

1925 24.02. Kienzl Sanctissimum

27.03. Frank The image of the Madonna

1931 20.06. Wellesz The Bacchae

1932 10:11. Heger The beggar Nameless

1934 20.01. Lehár Giuditta

08.12. Bittner The violet

1935 26.12. Salmhofer lady in dream

1937 06.02. Wenzl - Traun rock the atonement

17.04. Frank The strange woman

18.11. Weinberger Wallenstein

1938 09.03. Salmhofer Ivan Tarasenko

1939 02:02. Will King ballad

1941 04:04. Wagner Régeny Johanna Balk

1956 17.06. Martin The Storm

1971 23.05. The visit of an old lady

1976 17.12. A Love and Intrigue

1989 25.11. The blind Furrer (OD)

1990 06:12. Krenek last dance at St. Stephen's (Ron)

1995 20.05. Hölszky The walls (TW)

26.05. Schnittke Gesualdo

2002 15.06. Cerha Der Riese vom Steinfeld

2007 15:04 Naske The Omama in the apple tree

2010 28.02. Reimann Medea

2010 10:05. Eröd dots and Anton

www.wien-vienna.at/index.php?ID=484

12

archive of Casa Cuseni, an original newspaper article, preserved by Daphne Phelps, who hosted Danilo Dolci in Taormina.

archivio di Casa Cuseni, un articolo di giornale originale, conservato da Daphne Phelps, che ospitò a Taormina Danilo Dolci.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;

or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;

clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;

oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;

www.worldphoto.org/sony-world-photography-awards/winners-...

www.fotografidigitali.it/gallery/2726/opere-italiane-segn...

……………………………………………………………………….

A story of Sicily: the Sicilian Gandhi (but he was not Sicilian ...).

This photographic story is connected, at least in part, with the previous one, whose link is represented by the nephew of the painter Robert Kitson, Miss Daphne Phelps: in life she was a psychiatric social worker (she collaborated with Anna Freud, daughter by Sigmund Freud), on the death of his uncle in 1948 he moved to Sicily to take care of Casa Cuseni, having inherited it: initially he wanted to sell it and then return to England, instead he ended up falling in love with Taormina and Sicily, deciding to stay there for the rest of his life. Daphne ran Casa Cuseni welcoming paying guests, there are many illustrious names of artists, writers, well-known personalities who have stayed there: Danilo Dolci was one of these guests, and it is precisely about him that I wish to speak. He was born in 1924 in Sesana (Trieste), after a somewhat eventful life, in 1952 he moved to Trappeto (between Palermo and Trapani), a country among the poorest and most disadvantaged in Italy: that same year the first of numerous fasts, going to bed and fasting in the bed of a child who died of malnutrition, a protest that will end only when the authorities undertake to build a sewer. Danilo Dolci continues with numerous initiatives, from the publication of a book ("Banditi a Partinico", which makes public opinion aware of the poor living conditions of western Sicily, to this book and many others will follow), to the "strike at reverses ”, when the workers went on strike, hundreds of unemployed began to work to reactivate an abandoned municipal road, an initiative that was then stopped by the police; Dolci also initiates an activity of denunciation of the mafia phenomenon and its relations with politics. There are numerous certificates of esteem and solidarity that he receives from important personalities from Italy and abroad, but despite this, for others Danilo Dolci is a dangerous subversive, to be hindered, denigrated, locked up in prison. Yet Dolci does not pose as a guru, boss, or teacher, his working method is based on the conviction that change is based on the involvement and direct participation of those concerned, his idea of progress enhances local culture and skills; he tries, working closely with the people and the most disadvantaged and oppressed groups of western Sicily, to free the dormant creativity in every person, calling this research "maieutic", a term coming from philosophy, precisely from Socratic maieutics: it is "the 'art of the midwife ", every educational act is to bring to light all the inner potentialities of the one who wants to learn, like a mother who wants to give birth to her own child from her womb, so no to notions imparted a priori, yes to help the student to bring their knowledge to light, using dialogue as a tool; however, Socratic maieutics is unidirectional, while in Danilo Dolci's "reciprocal maieutics", knowledge comes out of experience and its sharing, therefore it presupposes the reciprocity of communication. During meetings with farmers and fishermen, the idea was born to build the dam on the Jato River, which is important for the economic development of the area, but also to remove a powerful weapon in the hands of the mafia, an instrument of power which controlled the few available water resources; however the request for "water for all" will be heavily hindered, popular mobilizations and long fasts will be necessary to finally see the project realized: now the dam exists, and others have been built, thus modifying the lives of thousands of people, with the development of numerous companies and cooperatives. Among the many activities of Dolci, thanks to the contribution of international experts, the experience of the Mirto Educational Center, attended by hundreds of children, should be mentioned. Returning to Daphne Phelps and Casa Cuseni, here is a lithograph by Tono Zancanaro, dedicated to the birth of one of Danilo Dolci's daughters, but, among the most important, there is a correspondence between the pacifist philosopher Bertrand Russel and Daphne Phelps, in which the English thinker invited Robert Kitson's niece to participate in the gatherings of progressive intellectuals and literary and scientific personalities of the time, among them, besides Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre and Carlo Levi, there was Danilo Dolci, sociologist, educator, still recognized today as one of the most important figures of nonviolence worldwide.

post Scriptum:

- the images with Danilo Dolci come from the Casa Cuseni archive: they are cuttings from original periodicals, often full pages, from English newspapers, carefully preserved by Miss Daphne Phelps; these images were also taken by photographing some pages of James McNeish's book, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- the photographs taken in various countries of Sicily, are prior to the covid-19 pandemic;

- thanks to the surgeon colleague dr. Franco Spadaro and his kind wife, Mrs. Mimma Cundari, owners of Casa Cuseni (declared in 1998, Italian National Monument), for their hospitality and availability, having made the Danilo Dolci archive available to me.

Una storia di Sicilia: il Gandhi siciliano (ma siciliano non era…).

Questo racconto fotografico, è connesso, almeno in parte, con quello precedente, il cui anello di congiunzione è rappresentato dalla nipote del pittore Robert Kitson, la signorina Daphne Phelps: lei nella vita era una assistente sociale psichiatrica (lei collaborava con Anna Freud, figlia di Sigmund Freud), alla morte dello zio nel 1948 si trasferì in Sicilia per occuparsi di Casa Cuseni, avendola ereditata: inizialmente la voleva vendere per poi ritornarsene in Inghilterra, invece finì con l’innamorarsi di Taormina e della Sicilia, decidendo di restarvi per il resto della sua vita. Daphne gestiva Casa Cuseni accogliendo ospiti paganti, numerosi sono i nomi illustri di artisti, scrittori, note personalità che vi hanno alloggiato: Danilo Dolci è stato uno di questi ospiti, ed è proprio di lui che desidero parlare. Egli nasce nel 1924 a Sesana (Trieste), dopo una vita un po’ movimentata, nel 1952 si trasferisce a Trappeto (tra Palermo e Trapani), un paese tra i più poveri e disagiati d’Italia: quello stesso anno inizia il primo di numerosi digiuni, coricandosi e digiunando nel letto di un bimbo morto per denutrizione, protesta che terminerà solo quando le autorità si impegneranno a costruire una fogna. Danilo Dolci prosegue con numerose iniziative, dalla pubblicazione di un libro (“Banditi a Partinico”, che mette a conoscenza dell’opinione pubblica delle misere condizioni di vita della Sicilia occidentale, a questo libro poi ne seguiranno molti altri), allo “sciopero alla rovescia”, quando i lavoratori fecero sciopero, centinaia di disoccupati si misero a lavorare per riattivare una strada comunale abbandonata, iniziativa però poi fermata dalla polizia; Dolci avvia anche una attività di denuncia del fenomeno mafioso e dei suoi rapporti con la politica. Numerosi sono gli attestati di stima e solidarietà che egli riceve da importanti personalità provenienti dall’Italia e dall’estero, ma nonostante ciò per altri Danilo Dolci è un pericoloso sovversivo, da ostacolare, denigrare, chiudere in prigione. Eppure Dolci non si atteggia né a santone, capo, od un maestro, il suo metodo di lavoro è basato sulla convinzione che il cambiamento è basato sul coinvolgimento e diretta partecipazione degli interessati, la sua idea di progresso valorizza la cultura e le competenze locali; egli cerca, lavorando a stretto contatto con la gente e le fasce più disagiate ed oppresse della Sicilia occidentale, di liberare la creatività sopita in ogni persona, chiamando tale ricerca “maieutica”, termine proveniente dalla filosofia, precisamente dalla maieutica socratica: è “l’arte della levatrice”, ogni atto educativo è far venire alla luce tutte le potenzialità interiori di colui che vuole imparare, al pari di una madre che vuol far nascere la propria creatura dal suo grembo, quindi no a nozioni impartite a priori, si ad aiutare lo studente a portare alla luce la propria conoscenza, usando il dialogo come strumento; però, la maieutica socratica è unidirezionale, mentre nella “maieutica reciproca” di Danilo Dolci, la conoscenza viene fuori dall’esperienza e dalla sua condivisione, quindi presuppone la reciprocità della comunicazione. Nel corso di riunioni con contadini e pescatori, nasce l’idea di costruire la diga sul fiume Jato, importante per lo sviluppo economico della zona, ma anche togliere un’arma potente in mano alla mafia, che faceva del controllo delle poche risorse idriche disponibili uno strumento di potere, però la richiesta di “acqua per tutti” verrà pesantemente ostacolata, saranno necessarie le mobilitazioni popolari, lunghi digiuni, per vedere infine realizzato il progetto: ora la diga esiste, ed altre sono state poi realizzate, modificando in tal modo la vita di migliaia di persone, con lo svilupparsi di numerose aziende e cooperative. Da menzionare, tra le tante attività di Dolci, grazie al contributo di esperti internazionali, l’esperienza del Centro Educativo di Mirto, frequentato da centinaia di bambini. Ritornando a Daphne Phelps e Casa Cuseni, qui è presente una litografia di Tono Zancanaro, dedicata alla nascita di una delle figlie di Danilo Dolci, ma, cosa tra le più importanti, esiste un carteggio tra il filosofo pacifista Bertrand Russel e Daphne Phelps, nel quale il pensatore inglese invitava la nipote di Robert Kitson a partecipare ai raduni di intellettuali progressisti e personalità letterarie e scientifiche dell’epoca, tra di loro, oltre Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre e Carlo Levi, c’era Danilo Dolci, sociologo, educatore, ancora oggi riconosciuto tra le figure di massimo rilievo della nonviolenza a livello mondiale.

post scriptum:

- le immagini con Danilo Dolci provengono dall'archivio di Casa Cuseni: sono ritagli di giornali originali dell'epoca, spesso pagine intere, provenienti da quotidiani inglesi, accuratamente conservati dalla signorina Daphne Phelps; tali immagini sono state realizzate fotografando anche alcune pagine del libro di James McNeish, "Fire under the ashes - The life of Danilo Dolci";

- le fotografie realizzate in diversi paesi della Sicilia, sono antecedenti alla pandemia da covid-19;

- si ringrazia il collega chirurgo dott. Franco Spadaro e la sua gentile consorte, signora Mimma Cundari, proprietari di Casa Cuseni (dichiarata nel 1998, Monumento Nazionale Italiano), per la loro ospitalità e disponibilità, avendo messo a mia disposizione l'archivio relativo a Danilo Dolci.

Centris adani, m, face 2_2021-07-29-14.48.04 ZS PMax UDR by USGS Bee Lab

9

Are Bees Territorial? Sometimes. If you are a male. And if you are big. I had not really thought in any systematic way about territoriality in bees until I was looking up information about the bee in this picture (Centris adani. Costa Rico, Tim McMahon collector). My literature poke revealed that colleague Gordon Frankie had published on this long ago in the 70s about territoriality in male C. adani. Off hand I can think of territorial males existing in at least some Anthidium, Xylocopa, Centris, Anthophora, Bombus. Makes me wonder if small bees might sometimes also be territorial but we just aren't observant enough to discover that fact. But, I would bet not, probably just a big bee thing. If you are territorial it has to be useful or why bother? Probably has to do with mating opportunities. Which leads to another weak observation: In general, highly territorial males are both praised and denigrated in human society. What is the intersection between those two thoughts? It feels fuzzy, ... but intriguing. If there is not a scientific paper there, there must be at least a novel. Perhaps a high end Romance Novel. ~~~~~~~~~~{{{{{{0}}}}}}~~~~~~~~~~

All photographs are public domain, feel free to download and use as you wish.

Photography Information:

Canon Mark II 5D, Zerene Stacker, Stackshot Sled, 65mm Canon MP-E 1-5X macro lens, Twin Macro Flash in Styrofoam Cooler, F5.0, ISO 100, Shutter Speed 200

We Are Made One with What We Touch and See

We are resolved into the supreme air,

We are made one with what we touch and see,

With our heart's blood each crimson sun is fair,

With our young lives each spring impassioned tree

Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range

The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.

- Oscar Wilde

You can also follow us on Instagram - account = USGSBIML

Want some Useful Links to the Techniques We Use? Well now here you go Citizen:

Best over all technical resource for photo stacking:

www.extreme-macro.co.uk/

Art Photo Book: Bees: An Up-Close Look at Pollinators Around the World:

www.amazon.com/Bees-Up-Close-Pollinators-Around-World/dp/...

Free Field Guide to Bee Genera of Maryland:

bio2.elmira.edu/fieldbio/beesofmarylandbookversion1.pdf

Basic USGSBIML set up:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-_yvIsucOY

USGSBIML Photoshopping Technique: Note that we now have added using the burn tool at 50% opacity set to shadows to clean up the halos that bleed into the black background from "hot" color sections of the picture.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdmx_8zqvN4

Bees of Maryland Organized by Taxa with information on each Genus

www.flickr.com/photos/usgsbiml/collections

PDF of Basic USGSBIML Photography Set Up:

Google Hangout Demonstration of Techniques:

plus.google.com/events/c5569losvskrv2nu606ltof8odo

or

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c15neFttoU

Excellent Technical Form on Stacking:

www.photomacrography.net/

Contact information:

Sam Droege

sdroege@usgs.gov

301 497 5840

LES VOILES DE SAINT-TROPEZ by steve lorillere

17 7

Steve Lorillere | Saint-Tropez Photo | Twitter | facebook

St. Anthony's fire.... also known historically as Ignis Sacer and Holy Fire, it's may refer to alchemic stage of rubedo or red work. Matthias Grünewald painter 1512-1516; this picture is treated with Carmine black and white filter to see inside a mood by Hughes Songe

20

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. Carl Jung

The temptation and TEMPTATION, a tiny temptation of discriminatory policies and the TEMPTATION of Antony, an Antonine linked to monasteries like hospitals, where the inside of the body is supposed magical and alchemical by an ecstatic state. St. Anthony’s fires are huge bonfires lit on the hills or in village squares to celebrate the light and the victory of the saint over the devils. The begging (described in the previous paragraph) also served to collect the firewood, the "wood of St. Anthony." ecstasy comes only in asceticism or resistance to the body and mainly to the stomach and sex, the Antonines with their Egyptian Tau crosses seek the key to life, the tau cross is a T-shaped cross all three ends of which are sometimes expanded through transcendental meditation, like the Taoists. So, forgive this comment which is a temptation to rediscover the role of the Antonines.The congregation spread still more during the 14th century, during which they also cared for those suffering from the Black Death, and at its height, in the 15th century, possessed about 370 hospitals. The congregation also produced a number of distinguished scholars and prelates. The other aspect of the folk tradition is the ability of the saint to heal many skin diseases such as shingles and St. Anthony’s Fire, also called “ignis sacer” or Holy fire. St. Anthony’s Fire was then classified medically as corresponding to the two different diseases: ergotism, caused by a fungus, and herpes zoster, caused by varicella-zoster virus. The latter is creating painful rashes in the shape of a belt (zoster means "belt"), but Ergotism was more spread in the Middle Ages. Ergotism is caused by a fungus, Ergot (Claviceps purpurea), a parasite of cereals and especially of rye, which, when affected by the fungus, gets a kind of cockspur, pending from the grasses. If this rye was not carefully cleaned but instead milled and used to produce a flour contaminated by this fungus, it caused serious intoxication to the people. The consequences were severe heartburns, spasms, convulsions, seizures, hallucinations, colic, vomiting, gangrene, mummification of fingers and toes and consequently the death, their privileges was that of caring for the sick of the papal household.The chronicler Sigiberto Genbloux wrote: "Human flesh fell to pieces, as men were burned by a sacred fire which devoured and gradually turned their body black as coal. They quickly died in agony or continued their life without the feet and hands, a life worse than death...". These cases, spread mainly in rural and poor areas, were attributed to the work of the devil. The fire brought by the saint was seen as a purifying element, while the fat of the pig was used to heal the sick, more precisely to isolate wounds and maintain the infection limited over the body; hence the vocation of the Antonian Order to the treatment of the Ergotism, or internal Temptation of stomacals pulsions....A very interesting photo and subject. Visions are of crucial importance - also in a society based on science and technology. However, the problem with visions is inevitably, and always has been, their interpretation. Talk to pentecostal pastors today and they will tell you that they are frequently forced to introduce a screening system as some of the visions in their congregation turned out to be destructive or just mad. It does help little to look inside when the looker is judge, policeman and governor in one person. We need to have our visions checked by others. St Anthony's visions are of little importance per se. Seen within a clerical system controlling the sexuality of the people they develop their importance.Their beneficent activities attracted generous gifts and endowments, but their income declined significantly after the Reformation, and more particularly once the connection was finally made between St. Anthony's Fire and the ergot fungus, and the incidence of the affliction fell sharply. In 1616 a reform was ordained and partially carried out. In 1777 the congregation, hugely reduced,was canonically united with the Knights of Malta. Only a tiny number of houses remained open, and the remnants of the order were finally suppressed in the French Revolution and the years immediately following. The last few German houses were dissolved during the secularisation of 1803. The part of shade of us even is thrown in a uniform, the morality is a dress to hide this reptilian consciousness of the Man, the internal fire burns as a dragon.St. Anthony is closely connected to the fire, in two very different senses. On one hand, the bonfire is meant, as large bonfires in winter have a symbolic purifying and healing function, on the other hand, the disease called "St. Anthony’s Fire" is to be mentioned. Anyway, St. Anthony mastered the fire and not surprisingly the iconography represents him often with the flame in the palm of his hand. A popular legend tells that Anthony went to hell with his faithful pig to redeem the souls of some dead. The piglet by running around created havoc among the demons, while Anthony recovered the damned souls. With his rod he caught some fire from the hell and brought it on the earth to heat and give light to humans.Antoine's fire is the revelation of this part into shade, it is the reptilian unconscious of the stomach or the sex, two navigators with the brain to travel with its body, astral or primary, every man for himself and in the black and invisible link which unites the Men.or the discerning caveman, the focus required to not die from ingesting the wrong thing—a leaf, a berry, a bug—must have absorbed considerable attention. As any wild plant expert would likely tell you, a case of mistaken botanical identity can be fatal; confuse poison hemlock for a wild carrot and it will probably be the last thing you do. Thankfully, the spread of agriculture and the emergence of cultivation soothed many of these fears, so that by the Renaissance the question of what was poisonous came to be chiefly the concern of medicine, where healing often came down to trial-and-error by toxicology. “What is there that is not poison?” once remarked the sixteenth-century physician Paracelsus. “All things are poison, and nothing is without poison: the dose alone makes a thing not poison.” Paracelsus’ advice on proper measurement has never ceased being a matter of importance to us—the modern truism “the dose makes the poison” is derived from him. But according to LSD users in the 1960s, the dose made the “trip.” Here, finally, was a poison that didn’t kill you, but instead seemed to expose the very core of existence. “There is no lethal dose known of LSD,” insisted the drug’s charismatic mascot Timothy Leary. The allure of nonlethal “acid” surely frustrated anti-drug advocates, who countered with a volley of myopic public service announcements spotlighting LSD’s potential to induce a mind-altering “bad trip.” Had they consulted the historical record, however, public health experts might have also revealed the drug’s dangerous botanical origins: Lysergic acid diethylamide is derived from ergot, a deadly fungus whose “bad trips” killed countless numbers of people during the Middle Ages and beyond. Ergot is the name given to a specific form of Claviceps purpurea, a parasitic European fungus. A purple, talon-like outgrowth, it is commonly found issuing from the ear of rye grains and, to a lesser extent, related cereals like wheat and barley. The French thought it was redolent of a rooster’s spur—hence its name, which is descended from “argot,” the Old French term for a cockspur. Each of these ergot kernels contains a number of alkaloids harmful to humans and animals. When ergot-infected grain is milled into flour and consumed, a host of troubles arise: convulsions and seizures, vivid hallucinations often of demons or animals, a restriction of blood flow to the extremities followed by a falling-off of gangrenous limbs. In many cases the hallucinations seize upon actual prickling or burning sensations arising from the loss of blood flow, leading the sufferer to believe he is crawling with insects or engulfed in flames. Among the few passing mentions of ergot in antiquity is from an Assyrian tablet, dated to around 660 BC, that warns of a “noxious pustule in the ear of grain.” More explicative accounts wouldn’t appear until the Middle Ages, however, when historians began chronicling a spate of bizarre epidemics, which they called ignis sacer (“holy fire”). Mezeray describes a gruesome outbreak in 994 in the south of France that swept away nearly 40,000 people: And when a plague of invisible fire broke out, cutting off limbs from the body and consuming many in a single night, the sufferers thronged to the churches and invoked the help of the Saints. The cries of those in pain and the shedding of burned-up limbs alike excited pity; the stench of rotten flesh was unbearable.

Sigebert of Gembloux witnessed in 1089 a similar malady afflicting the people of Lorraine that “caused their limbs to become as black as coal, and from which the patients died miserably, or were reduced to an unhappy life, having lost hands and feet.” Another “plague of fire” near Paris forced victims to seek recourse in a church of St. Mary. A good many were cured, presumably owing to the church’s ergot-free stores of grain. Unfortunately, upon returning home to their contaminated crops they suffered a relapse of their condition, consigning them once more to the church. Some held that the burning affliction was a divine punishment requiring divine intervention. In 1093, a monastic order was founded to care for the beleaguered victims of ergotism. The confraternity chose as its patron St. Anthony of Egypt, venerated for his legendary sufferings—during his protracted struggle in the desert with Satan, the poor hermit was regularly tormented by malevolent visions. The disease thereafter took on the name St. Anthony’s Fire and sufferers flocked to the order’s monasteries, which were signified by detached gangrenous limbs hanging above the entrances. (Limbs were a common motif of ergotism in art as well; Hieronymus Bosch placed a severed foot among the shambolic unfortunates in his triptych The Temptation of St. Anthony.) Some of these hospices even claimed to store collections of mummified limbs for victims to retrieve on the Last Judgment. St. Anthony’s Fire would continue to cast a pall over Europe until the late eighteenth century, when scientific sleuthing finally pointed the finger at spurred rye. The pernicious fungus was little more than a historical footnote when a sudden recurrence in 1951 unexpectedly launched it into headlines worldwide. Doctors in the small town of Pont-Saint-Esprit, France, had initially been summoned to treat a few patients with indefinite symptoms: nausea, chills, pains, burning sensations. Soon, more townsfolk succumbed to the illness, including the advent of frightful hallucinations. Within weeks the village was gripped by a mad panic: a 68-year-old woman threw herself from a third-floor window to escape the flames she believed to be enveloping her; another man barricaded himself inside his home with a gun, ready to shoot a monster that was stalking him; a third man screamed, “My head is on fire! There are snakes in my belly!” and attempted to throw himself into the Rhone; still another believed “bandits with donkey ears” to be chasing him. By the time it was over, four people were dead and over two hundred more had been made ill. Around twenty-five of these had been placed in straitjackets and institutionalized. The eruption of the disease, which had mostly lain dormant for centuries, must have seemed like traveling back in time—if a medieval ergotism outbreak could unfold over daily news headlines—only this time nobody suspected the work of divine agency. The poisoning was initially rumored to be the plot of some “unknown criminal,” but the real culprit was confirmed later by autopsies performed on two of the victims and reported in the British Medical Journal. Following the revelation, newspapers dubbed the cause of the incident as le pain maudit, the cursed bread. One headline read, “St. Anthony’s Fire May Have Taken Last Victims.” Less than three weeks after symptoms first appeared, the New York Times reported that a miller and a baker had been charged with involuntary homicide. Bread—perhaps the most salient thread in the fabric of French society—had been fouled. A Parisian newspaper was left wondering: “The baker whom we visit every day, the grocer we go to regularly, are they not, after all, maniacs or potential killers of whom we must beware?” Meanwhile, a cadre of scientists at Sandoz Pharmaceuticals were following the incident at Pont-Saint-Esprit with interest, as the Swiss drug company had isolated a dozen ergot alkaloids to be used as remedial agents. (Sandoz was also implicated in a nebulous 2011 claim that the Pont-Saint-Esprit bread had been laced with LSD by the CIA.) In particular, the alkaloid ergonovine had garnered attention for its ability to precipitate childbirth in cases of lingering labor. (The heath benefits of ergot were a long held, but little-known fact; for centuries, ancient “wise women” used it as a nostrum for women in labor, compelling Arabic and European scholars of later eras to report similar findings.) Another alkaloid, the vasoconstrictor ergotamine that causes gangrene, had also been isolated and marketed by the company for use in alleviating postpartum hemorrhaging, and as a migraine remedy. With these and other ergot discoveries in the Sandoz lab, it was in 1938 that a budding company chemist named Albert Hofmann, fiddling with lysergic acid alkaloids in ergot, lit upon a curious new compound: lysergic acid diethylamide. Early research noted restlessness in the experimental animals, but nothing else of interest, and the study was quickly shelved. Five years later, however, Hofmann felt an inexplicable urge to reinvestigate lysergic acid diethylamide. Exactly how the young researcher was first exposed to its effects is unclear—perhaps a soupçon of the chemical had been on his finger when he rubbed his eye—but the “not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition” he later described from that day would not long remain a secret: Last Friday, April 16, 1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours, this condition faded away.

Hofmann spent much of his life fascinated by ergot and LSD (which he would often repine was his “problem child”), and in later years he claimed in a book that the hallucinogenic brew imbibed during the Eleusinian Mysteries in ancient Greece likely contained ergot. In 1976, a behavioral psychologist argued that the fungus was involved in the Salem witch trials, provoking scores of lengthy, heated debates in academic and mainstream publications. Ergotism was also suspected (with little evidence) to be the cause of tarantism, a hysterical dancing disease primarily affecting Germany during the sixteenth century. But for whatever its past sins, the fungus exists in our modern world primarily as a valuable storehouse for remedies—and as the origin of an illicit pleasure. “Who despises poison, knows not what is in the poison,” wrote Paracelsus, as a caution to those who would denigrate nature’s harmful materials.

Laurent Merceron and more by Hughes Songe and Werner Ustorf for missed think in Wiki

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Anthony%27s_fire

11

archive of Casa Cuseni, an original newspaper article, preserved by Daphne Phelps, who hosted Danilo Dolci in Taormina.

archivio di Casa Cuseni, un articolo di giornale originale, conservato da Daphne Phelps, che ospitò a Taormina Danilo Dolci.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

click to activate the icon of slideshow: the small triangle inscribed in the small rectangle, at the top right, in the photostream;

or…. Press the “L” button to zoom in the image;

clicca sulla piccola icona per attivare lo slideshow: sulla facciata principale del photostream, in alto a destra c'è un piccolo rettangolo (rappresenta il monitor) con dentro un piccolo triangolo nero;

oppure…. premi il tasto “L” per ingrandire l'immagine;