Professor Aquila Invited by the Italian Cultural and Community Center and the Italian Consulate to Speak on Dante’s Relevance Today
A 700-year-old epic poem that takes the reader on a wandering journey through hell, purgatory and paradise still resonates in unison with the questions before humanity in 2021. Such was the brilliance of Dante Alighieri and his “Divine Comedy.” Italy reserves March 25 each year to celebrate his life and work. Examining the poet and his most outstan...
Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio meet with Osage cultural leaders to discuss ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ film
Osage cultural leaders met with director Martin Scorsese and lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio on Monday evening at Woolaroc. The discussion centered on the film adaptation of David Grann’s bestselling book, “Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Indian Murders and the Birth of the FBI.” Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear and Chad Renfro organized t...
Sicilian-Louisiana Reflections
Being born into a loving Sicilian-Louisiana family, nurtured within the heart of New Orleans’ multicultural mélange of fabulous food, music, art and celebrations, gave me a perspective that I now acknowledge as truly extraordinary! Earliest memories are sensuous–fresh-baked schicciata, earthy pan bread pressed to perfection by loving hands, pungent...
New Orleans Tivoli Circle Retain the Name
In 1806, less than a dozen homes existed upriver in New Orleans in what is now the Garden District. In that year, City Planner Barthelemy Lafon designed Place du Tivoli which was surrounded by Tivoli Circle as the street. Tivoli comes from Tivoli Gardens near Rome. Numerous cities around the world have named places after Tivoli. New Orleans has the...
The Dallas Opera Announces Free TOSCA Simulcast Stream
The Dallas Opera will make the company's gripping 2015 production of Giacomo Puccini's immortal Tosca available free of charge for home viewing. This passionate, star-studded production was originally simulcast live in high definition to a North Texas audience at Klyde Warren Park. TDO's Tosca stream will premiere online Friday, February 26, 2021 a...
Vincent D'Amico, educator, Robert Frost scholar, dies at 90
Vincent D’Amico, Robert Frost scholar, retired educator and proud University of St. Thomas alumnus, died of cancer at his home on Jan. 31 at age 90. During his lifetime, he decided that like Frost he would acquire acres of land of his own. In 2019, he donated 50 acres of land near Conroe to the University of St. Thomas to help it establish a nursin...
Thomas Jefferson’s little Anthony and the Arkansas Delta
Arkansas is steeped in history, natural beauty and southern hospitality. It is (you would think) one of the last places in America where residents from, fourth, fifth and sixth generations can trace their lineage back to Italy. One location in Arkansas where Italian immigrants were brought over to work on a cotton plantation circa 1895 was Sunnys...
In Dialogue: On Italian Drawings from the Twentieth Century | Feb 10
The Menil Collection presents In Dialogue: On Italian Drawings from the Twentieth Century, with Irina Zucca Alessandrelli e Edouard Kopp. Co-curators of the exhibtion Silent Revolutions: Italian Drawings from the Twentieth Century Conversation in streaming open to the public Wednesday, Feb 10 2021, 7pm on Menil Collection website e sul YouTube Chan...
Deanie’s Seafood owner Barbara Chifici passes away at age 77
Barbara Chifici, owner of Deanie’s Seafood Restaurants and matriarch of the Chifici Family, has passed away. She was 77. Family members say Chifici, who was also known as Mrs. Barbara, passed away late Saturday night at Ochsner Medical Center in Kenner from Coronavirus complications. Chifici, who came from a large Italian family of New Orleans rest...
Staff, patrons remember Dallas restaurateur Tom Ruggeri as a great entertainer and friend
Anytime Paula Scholz hears an Elvis song, she thinks of Tom Ruggeri. She worked with him for 18 years, starting as a waitress, shuttling cocktails back and forth, then moving upward at Ruggeri’s restaurant to help with the business and, as she tells it, lovingly battle in a way you’d expect from a family-run joint. “He and I fought like cats and do...
The Holocaust in Focus: Italy
Each year on January 27, the United Nations remembers the many people of Jewish origin affected by the Holocaust and this day is officially called the "International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust" (Il Giorno della Memoria). To remember the victims of the Holocaust, on Wednesday, January 27, 2021 the ICCC in collabor...
Louis DiRosa, New Orleans judge for 29 years, dies at 94
Louis Anthony DiRosa, who served the legal profession for 62 years as a lawyer and a judge in New Orleans, died Dec. 16 at his Metairie home. He was 94. DiRosa established his private law practice after earning a law degree at Loyola University in 1950. He was elected a Civil District Court judge in 1983. Even though DiRosa left office in 1996, he...