Category Archives: de humanis illustribus

A need for joy as the world falls to pieces.

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As a 19-year-old student of Italian, I was obsessed with Neorealist cinema.

That’s a shot from the closing scene of “Rome Open City,” Roberto Rossellini’s iconic 1945 film, one of the most famous works made during the war era.

Watching those movies — “Paison,” “Bitter Rice,” “Bicycle Thieves”… — as a young adult was a life-changing experience for me. Their characters were superhumans in my mind, capable of facing the worst that life could deal them: war, persecution, hunger, loss of liberty, death. It helped me to understand the hardship endured by my paternal great-grandparents, who were born into deep poverty in Russia (they fled the Cossacks in the first decade of the last century).

Yet those characters, often real people who had been recruited from the street, were also all too human. Italian filmmakers’ brilliant work brought their suffering to the screen in a (neo) real way that the world had never seen before.

I dreamed that I could be as strong when confronted by the life-and-death decisions that people in war are forced to make. I hoped that I could be as graceful were I ever to find myself in the bellic worst-case-scenario like those victims of imperialist war.

Today, Tracie, the girls, and I watch scenes on TV that seem plucked from a Neorealist film: the raids targeting brown people in our country, protesters being shot by federal agents, the concentration camps where brown people are treated like animals (see Pontecorvo’s “Kapò”), the imperial wars in Iran and Ukraine, the plight of Palestinian children…

Sometimes I wonder if we are just another bourgeois family in 1933 quietly pretending that the world isn’t falling apart. Actually, it’s more like 1939 at this point.

At our dinner table, we talk every night about the tragedies unfolding across our planet.

But like those Neorealist characters, we also try to find beauty and joy in the world around us, in the mundane as it were, in each other. If we didn’t, all would be lost. Maybe it was those characters’ fleeting joy, however ephemeral, that gave them the courage to withstand the unthinkable. I hope so.

Happy Italian Liberation Day! A great day to renew our commitment to fight Fascism!

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Today is April 25, Italian Liberation Day, the commemoration of the end of Fascist and Nazi rule in Italy in 1945.

Like every year on this day, I take time out to browse the wonderful Archivio Luce, Italy’s historical photography and cinema library. The editors always do a 25 Aprile feature in the days leading up to the national holiday.

It’s also a day that I think back to my early years as a student in Italy in the late 1980s. Many of the parents of my friends at the time were already young adults by the time war arrived in Europe.

Many of the fathers had been soldiers in the Fascist army. They told me stories of prisoner-of-war and concentration camps where they were confined after they were captured in Russia or Africa. My professor’s father was killed by the Nazis in the terrible Cephalonia massacre in occupied Greece.

One of my early mentors in Padua, the great philologist Gianfranco Folena, had been held as a political prisoner in a concentration camp. I would sit rapt on my classroom chair as he would talk about teaching Greek to his fellow prisoners, many of whom were intellectuals like him.

There is war on the continent today and Fascist politicians continue to rise on both sides of the Atlantic. Italy’s current government is its first “post-Fascist” coalition and it openly traces its origins to Mussolini’s party.

I can only wonder what professor Folena would say today.

Just like every year, I scan the faces in the photos and try to imagine what it felt like to taste freedom after more than two decades of murderous authoritarian rule.

And every year, I renew my commitment to fight Fascism. This morning my Instagram feed is filled with posts by Italian friends and colleagues who proudly declare themselves “anti-Fascists.”

Happy Liberation Day! Long live the anti-Fascist Republic and long live our commitment to fight Fascism!

Screenshots via Archivio Luce.

Thank you to everyone who donated to our MLK campaign: there is now an MLK billboard looking down over the Neo-Confederate monument in Orange, Texas.

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Tracie and I share our heartfelt thanks with everyone who contributed to our GoFundMe campaign to raise an MLK billboard over the Neo-Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas, where Tracie grew up and her family still lives.

We’ve worked with the billboard company for many years now and they were extra cool this time around: they put the billboard up a week or so ago and it will remain in place until March 5. We paid for eight weeks but they ended up giving us nearly 11 weeks, which is awesome.

It will be in place on MLK Day, Monday, January 15, and it will remain there throughout Black History Month (February).

In 2013 the Sons of Confederate Veterans began fund raising to build a Greek atrium and a series of flag poles to display Confederate battle flags (warning: link contains graphic material).

In 2017, the group — the contemporary incarnation of the Ku Klux Klan — completed construction and began displaying the flags. Despite Herculean efforts by the City of Orange to block them, nothing could be done because the monument stands on private land.

It’s located on MLK Dr., a major thoroughfare where thousands of cars pass every day to get to work, school, and church. The city passed a law limiting the height of new flagpoles in the city. But it can still be seen from Interstate 10.

As we do every year, Tracie and I will be organizing a protest of the site on MLK Day. Please stay tuned for details and please join us if you can.

Our goal is to repurpose the site so that it reflects the community (which is half Black) and community values. We recognize the Quixotic nature of our objective. But sometimes the battles you know you are going to lose are the ones that you need to fight.

It’s a cold stretch of road out there. But today it’s a little bit warmer.

Thanks to everyone who contributed. Please join us on MLK Day as we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King.

Read more about our efforts on our blog RepurposeMemorial.com.

Congratulations to my friend Laura Castelletti, the new mayor of Brescia! In a right wing northern Italy, she and her city are a glimmer of leftist hope.

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De humanis illustribus…

Congratulations to my longtime friend Laura Castelletti on her win as the new mayor of Brescia!

Her city is part of Italy’s northern industrial corridor, a network of metropoles that stretches from Turin to Venice.

In recent decades, those cities, once hubs for labor unions and progressive movements, have increasingly shifted toward the right. Parties like the Northern League (now called the League for Salvini Premier, a reference to its leader, the autocratic, xenophobic homophobic, and Russophile Matteo Salvini) have long dominated local politics.

Historically, Brescia has had both conservative and progressive governments. But it has remained a center for leftist thought and policy. Today, its historic downtown is known as the “Stalingrad” of Italy, one of the last bulwarks of progressivism in an increasingly “post-Fascist” Italy (last year, when Giorgia Meloni was elected as Italy’s prime minister, she was widely called the country’s “first post-fascist leader” and “first hard-right leader”).

For the last 13 years, Brescia has been my home away from home and Laura has been a warm and generous friend. I couldn’t be more thrilled to see her achieve this long-desired goal. My beloved Brescia couldn’t be in better hands.

Evviva Brescia e i bresciani! Evviva la sinistra!

Long live Brescia and the Brescians! Long live the Left!

Robert Camuto’s wonderful profile of Darrell Corti for Wine Spectator, in case you missed it.

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More than any others, two people have been the inspiration for my career: my dissertation advisor Luigi Ballerini and Darrell Corti.

While Luigi gave me the academic skills and rigor to fulfill my scholarly curiosity, Darrell showed me how that passion for inquiry could be balanced with making a living in the food and wine world.

Every time I’ve had the opportunity to interact with Darrell, it’s been nothing less than a wholly exhilarating gastronomic and intellectual experience.

That’s Darrell last year when he came to speak at the Taste of Italy trade fair in Houston.

In case you missed it, be sure to check out Robert Camuto’s profile of Darrell for Wine Spectator, “The Wizard of All,” published earlier this week and free to all.

Have a great weekend! Thanks for being here.

The tale of a social media influencer: Imp of the Perverse.

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Above: Alicia Lini, right, with my longtime friend and social media influencer, Giovanni Contrada, aka Imp of the Perverse.

When Italy first went into lockdown mode in March 2020, my longtime friend and fashion designer Giovanni Contrada (above, left) was living in Milan where he was building his Imp of the Perverse label and brand.

The boredom of the closures led him to start documenting his (at first modest) culinary adventures in Italy’s fashion and culture capital. What started with handful of simpatico videos on TikTok, where Giovanni would interact with owners of neighborhood cafés and restaurants, soon blossomed into an increasing number of likes and shares. And before long, that number started to grow — exponentially.

When he called me at the end of the year, he told me, “dude, I’m huge on TikTok.” And he wasn’t kidding.

He already had close to one million followers at the time. Today, he has 1.5 million followers — yes, one and a half million.

He also has an agent and scores of requests for product placements and endorsements. And his fashion line has exploded as well.

When Giovanni’s unique line of jackets and suits first took off, he was a favorite among the glitterati crowd. Ellen Degeneres and Melissa Etheridge were among the first celebrities to wear his clothes. Remember when Melissa Etheridge performed at the Grammys during her battle with cancer in 2005? She was wearing a Giovanni jacket.

As Giovanni was rising in the fashion world, he would often dress our band Nous Non Plus for our shows. Over the years, he’s even designed a few special pieces that he’s gifted to me (including “The Jar” hoodie). When I was up for a prize in Milan some years ago, he dressed me for the awards ceremony.

Last week, I traveled to Los Angeles to meet another dear friend and longtime client of mine, Alicia Lini. On Thursday morning, we sat down with Giovanni for breakfast at this fantastic Italian bakery and café on Sunset Blvd. called Ceci’s (everything was great, the erbazzone exceptional).

Click here to see the TikTok they made together. Click here for the Instagram. Giovanni also posted a wonderful clip of him enjoying Alicia’s traditional balsamic vinegar.

It was one of the ages. But that’s no surprise. Giovanni has always been such a loving and generous friend to me, a big brother who has comforted me in my worst times and shared my joy in my best.

Giovanni, I love you. Thanks for carving out an hour of your morning for us. I’ll never forget that chilly overcast day in LA as long as I live.

If you’re wondering where the handle “Imp of the Perverse” came from, look no further than Edgar Allen Poe.

Italian wine world mourns loss of Lorenzo Corino, natural wine pioneer and esteemed scientist.

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De humanis illustribus…

The following obituary by Filippo Larganà has been excerpted and translated from the popular Piedmont-focused wine, food, and agropolitics blog Sapori del Piemonte. The photo comes from the Maliosa winery website. Lorenzo Corino’s Maliosa estate in Maremma, Tuscany, was where he put his theories on natural wine and organic viticulture to work. Corino — a towering figure of Italian viticulture, writer, researcher, and a “fierce advocate” for natural wine — died this week at age 74.

    Lorenzo Corino was born in the hills of Costiglie d’Asti. Immediately after receiving his degree in agriculture, he was hired by [Italy’s prestigious] National Research Council, became a scientist, and then was appointed as director of the Asti campus of the Institute for Viticultural Research at Conegliano Veneto. He was later named director of the Enological Research Center in Asti where he would oversee countless research and viticultural projects. He died after a long illness on November 4, 2021.
    He was one of the leading figures of Piedmontese and Italian wine. Those who knew him often spoke of him a rigorous scientist who loved his work, who loved science and his land… Some called him a dreamer, an indefatigable utopian.
    Corino was a fierce advocate for natural wine. He created a website especially to share his definition of natural wine and he developed a vinification method today known as the “Corino method.”

Leading wine writer and vineyard consultant Maurizio Gily remembered him on his blog as “my maestro.”

Corino, wrote Gily, was “a gentle, passionate, and meticulous man who was generous with his time. He was a Piedmontese through and through and he never wavered from his sense of right and wrong — no matter what the cost… For his entire life, he was guided by his vision for ethical viticulture and farming practices that would have the least impact on the land.”

Never one to shy from controversy, Corino was also an active writer and blogger and he regularly translated his work into English. Visit his English-language blog here.

See also this profile of Corino on the Raw Wine website.