The Theme of Resurrection in Rossellini’s Stromboli

04. March 2026 · 4 comments · Categories: Critique, Film & TV Reviews · Tags: Doug Kraft, Inanna's Descent to the Underworld, Ingrid Bergman, resurrection myth, Roberto Rossellini

Directed by Roberto Rossellini
Starring Ingrid Bergman
Released in 1950
You can stream Stromboli on the Criterion Channel
A film critique by Alice Gebura

Identity and Narrative

Identity is the essence of who we are. The process of revealing that essence is often the work of an individual lifetime. On a political level, identity is the compilation of beliefs and values established by a group and projected through its structure and history. Who we are or might be is of perennial interest because identity often drives what we do and why.

Numerous scholars have emphasized the connection between narrative and the formation of identity:

“Narratives have always been central to how humans make sense of themselves and the world around them. It is a key mechanism through which identity is shaped, negotiated, and performed across personal, social, and digital contexts.”1

I look at Stromboli, a film written and directed by Roberto Rossellini. Stromboli is the story of Karin, a lost soul who has profoundly endured the violence of WWII. Existing within a world of violence, she is a woman whose survival tactics during the brutality of war have created her spiritual poverty at the opening of the film. She must somehow find peace and a better way to cope in this world. Stromboli exploits the concept of narrative on two levels. First, it depicts the collapse of a woman’s internal narrative, or constructed identity. Second, it uses the traditional resurrection narrative from mythology as the process through which Karin’s identity is recalibrated.

The Resurrection Story

In his essay “Breaking Open” Buddhist teacher and Unitarian minister Doug Kraft writes:

“Transformation is a popular word these days used to refer to spiritual growth. It implies that we change radically as we grow, like lead turning to gold. I don’t like the word because it is misleading. From the perspective of the ego, growth seems to involve changing from one thing into something very different. But from a deeper perspective, we do not really change. That which is deep within us emerges in our awareness.”2

He goes on to describe external factors such as social attitudes and conditioning that influence, perhaps even prevent, our ability to know our core essence. Kraft posits that until we can differentiate between identity states and who we truly are, we live in an induced trance that is emotionally crippling. At some point the pain of a particular identity state overrides whatever comfort or security has been gained by it. When the old self is abandoned, the next iteration emerges. Paradoxically the next iteration is not something “new” but something elemental. Something essential and true is found or recovered.

This cyclical process, similar to the story of the rebirth of the Phoenix, is reflected in the resurrection story, one of the oldest stories in history. The first known resurrection story, “Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld,” is part of the first extant written library, the 7^th century BC Library of Ashurbanipal. There are many subsequent resurrection stories throughout history such as the Greek myth of Persephone, the Christian Easter story, and the Norse myth of Odin’s sacrifice – to name a few.

The story of Inanna on cuneiform tablet (Brittish Museum).

In one interpretation, the life-death-rebirth cycle is an allegory for the seasons. In another interpretation it represents psychological and spiritual transformation. The trajectory of the resurrection story is basically as follows:

There is an initiation event that launches a journey or an ordeal.
The journey is typically a descent, literal or metaphorical, into “hell.” It is characterized by darkness and suffering.
Some kind of breakage – of the ego, for example – occurs as a result.
The reassembly of the breakage is the resurrection.

A brief summary of the story of “Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld” begins with the goddess Inanna’s wish to travel to the realm of the dead that is ruled by her sister, Ereshkigal. Her supposed reason is to attend the funeral of her brother-in-law, but Ereshkigal suspects Inanna wants to take over. To travel to the underworld Inanna must pass through seven gates on the way. At each gate, in a ritual of humiliation, she loses a piece of her regal clothing, i.e. some of her power. By the time she reaches the underworld she is naked and powerless. The suspicious Ereshkigal turns her into a corpse and hangs her on a hook to rot. Inanna is rescued when a friend sends two spirits to offer empathy to the suffering Ereshkigal. In gratitude, Ereshkigal releases Inanna’s corpse. The two spirits revive Inanna and she returns from her journey as cosmically complete. It goes on and on, but that’s the gist of it.

Stromboli, Terra di Dio

Karin’s psychological journey begins in a WWII refugee camp on mainland Italy where she is in a state of limbo. She is eager to move beyond the horrors of the war and her notorious past that includes being a Nazi collaborator. She is an operator jockeying for an opportunity to leave the camp by whatever means it takes. An opportunity presents itself in Antonio who is “crazy about her.” She hears his serenade and when we see them together they are separated by the camp’s barbed wire fence. They try to kiss but the fence is a barrier between them. This physical divide symbolizes the painful class and cultural divide that defines their relationship.

Antonio and Karin meet at the barbed wire fence that separates the camps.

When the tactics of lying and manipulation fail in the emigration office, Karin resorts to another tactic, seduction. Her unprincipled opportunism is partly understandable due to the circumstances of war, but things will not end well. The whole-tone scale motif played by harp and flute in the background bodes ill. This haunting motif is introduced as Karin and Antonio marry and set off for his hometown on the volcanic island of Stromboli.

From the wedding scene we cut to a ship sailing toward the horizon and then a close-up of Karin and Antonio on deck. The sailing sequence brings us further and further out to sea, eventually we see only the ship surrounded by sky and sea. I am reminded of the River Styx in the Persephone myth. While Karin thinks she’s headed for an island paradise, she is being ferried to the underworld. So begins Karin’s psychic “descent.”

Crossing the river Styx. Unknown artist.

The underworld analogy materializes as a landscape of black sand and rocks with the ominous volcano simmering in the background. There is little vegetation, mostly scrub and cacti. The severe geometrics of the town’s eery stone buildings are empty and silent. Throughout the arrival scene we see Karin become more and more perturbed as she realizes what she has gotten herself into. She demands to be taken away from this island. She is too good for this “uncivilized” place, she’s used to better things. She is angry, she cries. A baby wails in the background as if to equate Karin’s emotional age with tantrums. These scenes are progressively lit with more and more contrast. Deep shadows cast against the white walls, characteristic of the lighting in film noir. The robe she wears at night has wide stripes like a prison uniform. She wanders around the maze-like village crying “I want to get out.” Without the money to leave, she is literally a prisoner. Her differences with Antonio and the villagers increase her alienation. The local priest offers advice but no respite.

Welcome home! Stromboli is a volcanic island off the coast of Sicily. It belongs to the Aeolian Islands archipelago, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Karin is experiencing a ritual of humiliation similar to that in the myth of Inanna. As Inanna passed through the seven gates on the way to the underworld, she lost her clothing- symbolizing the loss of her power. Karin’s powers are depleted one by one as petulance, demands, anger, crying and seduction meet a dead end.

Karin, used to the spoiled life of cafe culture, despairs in the desolate landscape on Stromboli.

Karin exists in a world of violence. The violence of the world war has ended but again and again Karin is confronted with the violence of men and nature. Her husband beats her and tries to control her. She recoils at the sadistic scene between the ferret and the rabbit. The mattanza creates a savage death trap for the struggling tuna. The bloodied water splashes Karin in a violent nod to Christian baptism: “dying with Christ and being reborn.” Then the volcano explodes. Rocks reign from the sky, clouds of noxious gasses billow forth. Lava and steam engulf the landscape. Karin is at the end of her rope. Antonio locks her in the house when she tries to leave. Her ingenuity and seductive powers seem to get her out of a mess once again in her rendez-vous with the lighthouse keeper.

Rossellini captured the old world method of tuna fishing, the mattanza. It was brought to Sicily by the Arabs who occupied Sicily from 827 to 902.

Her intent to escape by trekking across the volcano is a confrontation with hell. Sulfurous gasses choke her, she slides and trips on the steep terrain. Rossellini executes his characteristic camera work to obliterate any anchor in space, any discernible compass in the landscape. She sheds her suitcase and money purse, even her shoes. In this wretched hellscape that defies human survival, Karin’s willfulness and scheming are useless against the violent power of nature. She is not a corpse on a hook like Inanna, but stripped down to her elemental core. She collapses in utter despair. The billowing gasses subside and she looks up to see the stars, begging God to grant her a little peace.

Karin collapses while attempting to walk across the volcano.

Emerging

Jungian analyst Clarissa Pinkola Estes would call this the stage of the descent where love is found in the underworld. In Inanna’s story this is represented by the two spirits sent down to rescue her. Remember – they did so by empathizing with Ereshkigal who then released Inanna in gratitude. In other words it was kindness, not force of will or violence, that freed Inanna. According to Estes, “This loving presence waits and watches for the wandering seeker…It is called a little flicker or light or insight, a presentment, or a presence.”³ It can take many forms, here it is the light of the stars.

Karin submits to the cosmos and the old Karin “dies.” When she wakes up with the daylight she feels peaceful, saying, “No I can’t go back. I don’t want to. They’re horrible. It’s all horrible, but I’m even worse.”

“Dio! Mio Dio! Aiutami! Dammi la forza, la comprensione, e il coraggio!”

At last Karin confronts herself. She asks for spiritual help, strength and courage. She has emerged from her psychic descent, the breaking of her ego. As the broken pieces of Karin’s identity are reassembled and reshaped, she takes responsibility for herself with the knowledge of a transcendent presence. In writing the initial idea for Stromboli, Rossellini said:

“Suddenly the woman understands the value of the eternal truth which rules human lives; she understands the mighty power of her who possesses nothing, this extraordinary strength which procures complete freedom. In reality she becomes another St. Francis. An intense feeling of joy springs out from her heart, an immense joy of living.”4

In response to the critics’ and audiences’ complaint about the lack of a traditional resolution to the story, Rossellini wrote:

“I don’t know. That would be the beginning of another film. The only hope for Karin is to have a human attitude toward something, at least once…There’s a turning point in every human experience in life… My endings are turning points. Then it begins again. But as for what it is that begins, I don’t know.”5

This last quote reflects the cycle of birth-death-rebirth that structures the resurrection story. Stromboli is the story of a person whose spirit has been sullied by violence and war. At the end of the film Karin is again in a state of limbo ie not knowing where she is going. With this ambiguity Rossellini refrains from moralizing.6 But Karin and we the audience trust that now she will follow some path that is right for her and with a different perspective.

NOTES

Hnit, Hussein and Almanna, Ali. “Constructing identity through narratives: Personal, social, and digital dimensions.” Social Sciences & Humanities Open (Elsevier: 12, 2025).
I heard this essay for the first time as a sermon delivered by Doug Kraft at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church, Ashby, Massachusetts in 1994. I asked for a printed copy. Although Doug has published numerous books, I am not aware of an instance where this particular essay is published.
Estes, Clarissa Pinkola, Women Who Run with the Wolves (New York: Ballantine Books, 1992),
Brunette, Peter, Roberto Rossellini (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 110.
Brunette, Peter, Roberto Rossellini (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 126.
Because Rossellini had a contract with Hollywood, Hollywood controlled the American release of the film. They ruined it with their editing and they changed the ending. In the Hollywood version Karin goes back to her husband like a good little wife. This ending turns the film into a moral tale of marital fidelity and obedience ie it takes away Karin’s power.

Mafioso: Fact vs. Fiction

22. February 2026 · 1 comment · Categories: Film & TV Reviews · Tags: Alberto Anastasia, Alberto Lattuada, Alberto Sordi, Mafia history in Sicily, mafia in WWII, Mafioso film review, sack of Palermo

One of the first Italian films to realistically portray the Mafia

Directed by Alberto Lattuada
Starring Alberto Sordi
Released in 1962
You can stream Mafioso on the Criterion Channel
A film critique by Alice Gebura

Introduction

Mafioso was made in 1962. At the time the Mafia was getting away with whatever it wanted to in Italy and internationally. The sordid history of organized crime and attempts by authorities to bring these criminals to justice since 1962 is long and complex. What we know today, thanks to the courage of many in undercover investigations and the courts, was not known by the filmmaker, Alberto Lattuada, in 1962. Yet he crafted a revealing story informed by the streets and the whispered anecdotes of family stories and witnesses. My review shows how factual history informs the story of one man’s existential tragedy in a dehumanized capitalist system that dances with international crime.

I begin with a very short history of the Mafia in Sicily based on two excellent books: Mafioso by Colin McLaren (2022) and Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb (2008). I can’t recommend these books highly enough.

What is “Mafia”

Mafioso takes place in Sicily so this is the particular story of Sicily. I look at three eras in its history that inform our understanding of the film:

Before the Risorgimento (the unification of Italy)
1861 – WWII
Post WWII

Before the Risorgimento (the unification of Italy)

“Greek-speaking Sicily became a Roman province in 200 BCE…Most of the following two millennia were also spent under foreign rule…It is impossible to calculate how much produce and money have been taken out of Sicily in rents, taxes, and just plain looting in the past 2000 years.”1

Roger I of Sicily at the Battle of Cerami, by Prosper Lafave.
Roger, a Norman invader, conquered the previous invaders of Sicily, the Arabs.

The corruption of justice in Sicily can be traced back to the eras of the Greeks and Romans. Occupation continued with the Arabs then the Normans, relatively quiet times. Injustice metastasized with the arrival of the Spanish and the Bourbons. The stories are truly horrific.

1603 Spanish dungeon in Palermo, now a museum. The prisoners left graffiti. https://www.wondersofsicily.com/palermo-museum-inquisition.htm

For centuries the latifondi (large, landed estates) were owned by aristocratic families who were seen less and less on their land. They put the hated gabellotti in charge of their estates, guarded by armed campieri. The gabellotti leased land to sharecroppers who oversaw day laborers working the fields. They subsisted on bread, pasta, and beans, living in dire poverty.2

The gabellotti were estate administrators and tax collectors who used extortion and intimidation to control the people. They were a parasitic presence that grew in the space between the absentee landowner and the people. Playing both sides, they protected and ripped off the landowners as they protected and ripped off the peasants.3

Gabellotti https://www.perizieartistiche.it/2023/03/28/campieri-e-gabellotti/

1861-WWII

In the 1800s, the push to create a unified Italy began in the north and eventually initiated a military campaign to oust the Bourbons in the south. The Bourbons had a large, well-equipped army. To overthrow this formidable force, the north enlisted the aid of the gabellotti and campieri in Sicily. In exchange for their help, the north promised these local, hard-nosed criminals that they would be rewarded with land ownership.

Garibaldi in Palermo by Giovanni Fattori (the siege of Palermo)

Despite the promises of land reform made to Sicily in exchange for fighting with the troops of General Garibaldi,4 land reform did not materialize and miserable conditions continued in Sicily from the 1860s on. In addition, the new government of unified Italy levied onerous taxes on Sicily while favoring the north with public works. Protests were met with bloody suppressions while the gabellotti and campieri continued their reign of terror. The police were just as corrupt. Terrible hunger and poverty drove emigration to the US and elsewhere during this time. The unification of Italy had resulted in yet another occupation of Sicily – this time by the north.

By the time of the Risorgimento, Sicilians had developed an ingrained distrust of government and a deep suspicion of all outsiders. These were coping mechanisms born of necessity.

“The Sicilians had no alternative but to rely on their own popular tribunals.”5 In other words, people took the law into their own hands. “Brotherhoods” sprang up to redress injustice. For example, if livestock was stolen, a farmer could contact someone to recover it regardless of the method used. The “recovery man” was likely a hardened criminal suitable to the job.

In time, this practice became an income stream – with one difference. The brotherhood did both – the stealing and the recovery – and also got into the business of kidnapping people for ransom. The practice of collecting protection money evolved from this system as well. Bribery was another form of surviving within this corrupt system.

The Marasa Brothers’ criminal network ruled Sicily for 20 years. Photo from Mafisoso by Colin McLaren

Ernesto Marasa (1881-1948) codified mafia operations in a document known as the “manifesto.” He instituted the practice of omerta – the code of silence. Anyone who talked was disposed of permanently.

The Mafia, in summary, evolved historically at the intersection of:

Centuries of occupation, misgovernment and injustice
Distrust and hostility towards government and police as a result
Dependence on criminal elements to redress grievances that then inspired the people’s loyalty and silence
An established criminal element (gabellotti and campiere) allied with those in power who were well-versed in social control through extortion and intimidation
When you have nothing, all options are open

Campiere (1949) by Renato Guttuso 6

WWII: The Mafia is Strengthened and Gains Political Power

During Italy’s fascist era (1922-1943), Musolini tried to stamp out the Mafia in Sicily which sent many of these criminals into hiding. These Mafiosi thus acquired an anti-fascist identity. The Americans assumed the anti-fascist identity of the Mafia in hiding meant they were allies of the resistance. Mafia, already well-versed in playing both sides, took advantage.

Meanwhile Italian organized crime had got a foothold in the US in the late 1800s and eventually had control of the New York City waterfront.

“The Navy [needing the ports for wartime shipping] realized that they did not have full security control over the Port of New York. They couldn’t get into the unions, they couldn’t get next to the shopkeepers, the longshoremen. Nobody was talking to them. The Navy was surprised to learn that not only would the Mafia be ready to help, but they would be happy to.”7

Albert Anastasia, notorious gangster based in New York and New Jersey. This family photo shows Albert in his US Army uniform. He already had a lengthy rap sheet when he enlisted to evade ongoing criminal investigations into “Murder, Inc.” From 1942 to 1944 he was a technical sergeant training G. I. longshoremen in Pennsylvania. In 1943 he was given US citizenship.

Post WWII

Mafiosi were rewarded by the US for their role in the American invasion of Sicily. The wealth and access provided to the Mafia by the Americans re-established Mafia power in Sicily and from there it metastasized to Rome and the Vatican.

The Mafia used its ties to Sicily to aid allied troops during Operation Husky (Allied invasion of Sicily). 8

The US/Italy Connection

Immigration, especially from southern Italy with its particular history
WWII – Mafia/military alliances
International cooperation between criminals in managing drug routes and money laundering

Calogero Vizzini: Real-Life Sicilian Capo

“Citizens appeal to him to settle their differences in business and matters of honor.” 9

“In the 1890s, some people, including the young Calogero Vizzini, decided to do something about the absence of peace and security in the country town of Villalba. The state police at the time was as much a danger as the brigands.

The Villalba Mafia thus emerged as an alternative social regime centered on membership in church-sponsored associations that generated considerable social capital. It later transformed into a protection racket, victimizing villagers and landowners alike through violence, intimidation and omerta.”10

“The supreme head of the Mafia after WWII was Calogero Vizzini who died in 1954. He is said to have been half-illiterate and to have been made the mayor of Vilalba with the support of the American Army.”11

“Because of his excellent connections, Vizzini also became the ‘king’ of the rampant post-war black market* and arranged to get Villalba’s overly inquisitive police chief killed.”12

[*American food aid meant for the Italian people was diverted by the Mafia to the black market where they then sold it for high prices.]

“In 1949, Vizzini and Italian-American crime boss Lucky Luciano set up a candy factory in Palermo exporting products all over Europe and to the US. Police suspected that it was a cover for heroin trafficking.”13

“Vizzini’s criminal record included 39 murders, six attempted murders, 13 acts of private violence, 36 robberies, 37 thefts and 63 extortions.”14

Mafioso the Film

Now let’s talk about Mafioso the film. I assume you’ve watched it so I will not repeat the story here. Instead I provide the contemporary context for when the film was made in 1962. Then I deconstruct some of the scenes in the film.

The Context

In 1962 the power elite denied a fact well-known to the people – the existence of organized crime that permeated all levels of Sicilian life as well as the government of Italy and the Vatican.

The criminal organizations in the south were known to themselves by their names such as Camorra and La Cosa Nostra, but these names were unknown to the general population. The term Mafia defined a criminal way of life while the existence of a formal crime organization by that name was denied. Certainly, as in the film Mafioso, it was not spoken of openly. According to Peter Robb, author of Midnight in Sicily:

“[In Sicily] police practice and judicial practice, the very articles of the law, reflected a belief that Cosa Nostra didn’t exist. Nobody even knew its name until Tommaso Buscetta revealed it in 1984.”15

“Buried in Concrete”

The “Sack of Palermo” began in 1958. Salvo Lima, a Mafioso and mayor of Palermo, collaborated with Vito Ciancimino to issue 4,200 building permits. 17th and 18th century palazzi were razed and replaced with massive, ugly concrete buildings that “multiplied like cancer cells.”16 They profited from real estate development, as follows:

Supplying inferior materials while charging for premium
Embezzlement
Easy environment to launder drug money
Taking the money then abandoning the project

The gentry were happy to work with the Mafia to profit from the sale of their old agricultural lands. This destruction of history and beauty broke the hearts of the powerless Palmeritans.

BEFORE: The waterfront of Palermo was once lined with palazzi and villas. There were huge parks, the former hunting and agricultural lands of the aristocracy.

AFTER – https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/25/buried-in-concrete-how-the-mafia-made-a-killing-from-the-destruction-of-italys-south

“Thanks to inroads made in the political sphere, the Mafia created fictitious shell companies and won every bid. Hundreds of those apartment blocks were built unregulated, some without running water or toilets. In less then twenty years, the city, an architectural jewel, had been disfigured.”17

An unfinished building in Via Tiro a Segno, in Palermo. After taking money for their completion, building firms tied to the Mafia left many of these constructions unfinished. Photograph: Alessio Mamo https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/25/buried-in-concrete-how-the-mafia-made-a-killing-from-the-destruction-of-italys-south

L’Ora investigative reporting on real estate fraud in Palermo, June 23, 1961. The paper coined the term “the Sack of Palermo.” https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/urban-history/article/hands-over-the-city-the-mafia-lora-and-the-sack-of-palermo/EEFEE5853FB0064E30A4F203C29FA959

The story of Mafioso the film happens within the context of an entrenched criminal enterprise with a lurid history that since WWII had expanded nationally and internationally, its tentacles reaching across business, government and the Vatican.

Scene: The Capitalist “Miracle”

Mafioso opens in the factory in Milan where Nino works. The factory boss is a man from New Jersey whose parents are also from Nino’s hometown in Sicily: Calamo. Right away the film connects criminal elements to Italian industry, the US, and Sicily.

Scene: The Mafia Fetish of Honor

The boss gives Nino a gift for Don Vincenzo. The gift, a bejeweled heart, is engraved with a list of names. It is a coded signal for Don Vincenzo who says upon receiving it: “Our American friends do things in a big way… One name is missing.” The missing name identifies the victim of the hit. The heart and hands are two symbols throughout the film associated with loyalty (“friends help one another”), duty (“you can’t leave your old friends behind”), and obey (“mama orders, child obeys”)

In another scene, Nino asks what happened to his old friend Pesalise di Calamo. “He dug his own grave.” “He betrayed his friends.” Apparently Nino’s old friend had “talked,” a betrayal of omerta.

Omerta is the code of silence. Nothing is to be said outside the criminal enclave. Even within it, nothing is explicitly stated. Conversations are oblique.

Scene: Distrust of Outsiders

Due to centuries of occupation and injustice Sicilians had developed an ingrained distrust of government and a deep suspicion of all outsiders. These were coping mechanisms born of necessity. In Mafioso, the villagers and especially Ninos mother, look askance at Marta, the outsider. This scene captures the nature of the Sicilians.

Scene: Meet Don Vincenzo, the Local Crime Boss

The scenes of the estate from where Don Vincenzo rules and oversees life in Calamo were filmed at the Villa Palagonia in Bagheria, Sicily. Built in 1715 , the villa is famous for its gruesome sculpted figures. Its nickname Villa di Mostri (villa of monsters) is an apt metaphor for the world of Don Vincenzo.

Villa Palagonia today – the back courtyard of the villa

Villa Palagonia today – the courtyard and i mostri. Note the ugly tenement behind the villa.

The villa in a scene from Mafioso

The villa scene in the courtyard we see i mostri (the monsters) atop the wall in the background. Don Vincenzo sits as if on a throne surrounded by his minions. I mostri and Don Vincenzo sitting above everyone emphasizes the power structure. Note also the presence of the clergy, implying the close association between the Mafia and the church.

In this scene we meet Don Vincenzo and learn this is not his villa. He is the estate manager for the Baroness – he is a gabellotti.

Nino’s father is fighting with a neighbor who is trying to cheat him over a land sale. Don Vincenzo intervenes and “fixes” the problem. This is a reference to Sicily’s historic reliance on the local “brotherhood” to mete out justice, instead of working through the local government. Because the local police and courts installed by occupiers were notoriously corrupt, Sicilians settled their differences outside the law.

In the scene below, Nino thanks Don Vincenzo for fixing the problem for his father. Nino will find out that favors don’t come for free.

1957 Assassination of Albert Anastasia

On October 25, 1957, notorious mobster Albert Anastasia was shot while getting a shave at the barber shop in the Park Sheraton Hotel (56th Street and 7th Avenue) in Manhattan.

He was assassinated shortly after returning from a Mafia meeting held in Sicily at Palermo’s Grand Hotel et des Palmes. The killers were never identified or caught.

“Bare-chested corpse of Murder Inc.’s Albert “The Executioner” Anastasia covered w. barber towels on floor of barber shop, after he was killed by 10 shots fr. masked gunman, while 5 detectives take notes & scour the premises for evidence.” – Life Magazine

Who was Albert Anastasia

He was the notorious and vicious leader of Murder, Inc. and responsible directly or indirectly for over 400 murders. He was Involved in loan sharking, gambling, control of the NYC waterfront and longshoremen’s union (conduits for entry of narcotics). He was assassinated during a power struggle between the Mangano and Genovese families known as the Castellammarese War.18

Albert Anastasia (left) leaves Federal District Court with his attorney, Anthony Colendra. May 23, 1955. – Wikimedia Commons

Scene: Nino’s “Hunting Trip”

Nino is “unboxed” in Manhattan and taken to a meeting where he learns what he is to do. He is then driven over the river to New Jersey to carry out the assassination. The motive for the killing is alluded to as “a betrayal” but the specifics are not divulged.

Nino’s target is identified in a home movie

The “assassin in a box” strategy was apparently a real life occurrence known of by one of Mafioso’s screenwriters, Bruno Caruso.19

Street scene from the film, near the barber shop. Note the street cleaner “Keep North Bergen Clean.” The real Albert Anastasia lived in Fort Lee, Bergen County, New Jersey. Coincidence?

Scene: Nino murders his target in a NJ barber shop

Calamo or Alcamo?

Mafioso portrays life in the fictitious town of Calamo. Calamo is an anagram of Alcamo, an actual town in Sicily with a notorious Mafia history. It is not known if the writers of Mafioso purposely meant to allude to Alcamo. But I found it interesting to note the following about Alcamo:

The town of Alcamo, in the province of Trapani, is, according to police, a major center for Mafia activity. https ://www.upi.com/Archives/1982/02/24/Police-today-announced-the-arrest-of-22-Mafia-suspects/5591383374800 /
Alcamo is next to Castellamare del Golfo, the birthplace of several well-known Mafia bosses who emigrated to America. The Castellammarese War was a power struggle between factions of organized crime in New York 1930-1931. Albert Anastasia played a prominent role.
The Sicilian Mafia in Trapani, including Alcamo and Castellammare del Golfo, has maintained significant ties with the American Cosa Nostra, particularly the Bonanno family in New York.
Vincenzo Milazzo was the Mafia boss of the Alcamo clan. He was assassinated (years after the film Mafioso was made) because he was planning a hit on Toto Riina, head of the Corleone clan and a sadistic power figure in Cosa Nostra history.
Don Vincenzo is the Mafia boss in Calamo. Vincenzo Milazzo is the Mafia boss in Alcamo. Coincidence?
Mafioso was not filmed in Alcamo, however, it was filmed in Belmonte-Mezzagno.

On location in Belmonte-Mezzagno

The central square in the town of Belmonte-Mezzagno in Sicily.

Alberto Sordi (Nino) on the left. The church of Belmonte-Mezzagno is in the background.

What is a “mafioso”?
The film Mafioso has an answer for us

A mafioso is a man who….

Grows up and is indoctrinated within a criminal system, participating as a young foot soldier- picciotto d’onore. He learns to do what he is told.

He might believe that he is free and prosperous, leading the good life. But he is, in fact, controlled.

Dark omens dog his movements. The lady in black appears in the train station.

One of the first things Nino and his family come upon in Calamo is a funeral with the lady in black in attendance.

The bejeweled heart, the gift Nino brings, ends up in the church entwined with a skull.

As Nino is on his way to the hunting trip, a black portal dominates the scene.

Suddenly a black cat crosses his path.

Nino is like a rat in a cage. Increasingly claustrophobic spaces close him in. His boyhood home is full of obstacles that he must climb over, that obscure his vision.

Whether the brass rails of a bed or the gates of an elevator, we are reminded of the metaphoric jail of his life.

He literally ends up inside a box.

In a car or a hallway the spaces are confined and suffocating.

He understands the coded language.

Nino weeps.

Through the story of Nino, Mafioso reveals the deadly price paid by those living within the Mafia environment and the personal tragedy of a man mixed up in it. It indicts Italian industry as a player within a transnational criminal enterprise. Mafioso becomes a word full of irony as the “protectors” turn out to be the predators and their conviviality masks ruthless control.

Settling a score in Sicily, 1900 – Getty Images

A Word of Warning

The film Mafioso is only the beginning of our awareness of the Mafia’s insidious presence. What we know decades later is the result of the moral courage of journalists and the justice system (those who haven’t been bought). That’s why journalists are the first targets of an unfettered evil regime. Mafioso the film is an excellent example of art as a deep dive into the reality beneath the superficiality of every day life. Nino is a patsy because he believes the propaganda: that he is a free man who enjoys the economic benefits of the paternal state. Today the Mafia is alive and well internationally and especially in the United States. Don’t kid yourself otherwise. If you want to know more about organized crime, whether its history or its contemporary activity, I recommend the following:

Anything by Italian journalist Roberto Saviano
Mafia Kills Only in Summer, the Italian series
Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb
Mafioso by Colin McLaren

As I discover more great resources I will post in the comments. Thank you for reading!

Notes

Robb, Peter. Midnight in Sicily. Duffy & Snellgrove, Australia, 1997. pg. 46
Robb, pg. 46
Robb, pg. 48
Garibaldi and his troops entered Sicily via the port of Marsala in Sicily. Note that Marsala is 80 miles away from Africa (Tunisia) and this is one of the major entry points of heroin into Italy.
Schiavo, Giovanni. The Truth About the Mafia and Organized Crime in America. Virgo Press, NY, 1962. pg. 28
Renato Guttuso was a famous Sicilian artist whose estate was stolen after his death by the Cosa Nostra.
New York Post. Dec. 23, 2022, “Revealed: How the Navy made a secret deal with the mob to win WWII” quoting Matthew Black, author of Operation Underworld: How the Mafia and U.S. Government Teamed Up to Win World War II. Citadel Press Books, NY, 2022.
https://nypost.com/2022/12/23/how-the-navy-made-a-secret-deal-with-the-mafia-to-win-wwii/
Schiavo, pg. 53 quoting Crawford, Francis Marion. The Rulers of the South; Sicily, Calabria, Malta. Macmillan, NY, 1900. https://archive.org/details/rulersofsouthsc02crawiala
Sabetti, Filippo. Village Politics and the Mafia in Sicily. McGill-Queen’s University Press, Quebec, 2002. (quoted in Wikiwand https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Calogero_Vizzini)
Schiavo, pg. 52
“The Mafia Restored: Fighters for Democracy in World War II”. Archived from the original on 17 April 2011. Retrieved 20 December 2006., The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Alfred W. McCoy. (quoted in Wikiwand https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Calogero_Vizzini)
“Luciano Organizes the Postwar Heroin Trade”. Archived from the original on 17 April 2011. Retrieved 20 December 2006., The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia, Alfred W. McCoy (quoted in Wikiwand https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Calogero_Vizzini)
Servadio, Gaia. A history of the Mafia from its origins to the present day. Secker & Warburg, London, 1976. (quoted in Wikiwand https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/Calogero_Vizzini)
Sicilian mobster Buscetta moved between Palermo, Brazil and Argentina as a smuggler. He turned informant in 1984.
https://themobmuseum.org/blog/sicilian-mafioso-tommaso-buscetta-broke-the-sacred-oath-of-omerta-40-years-ago/
Robb, pg. 23
Kahn, Milka. Women of Honor. Hurst & Company, London, 2017. Pg. 11 (quoting Charbot and Veron, Corleone, la guerre des parrains, TV documentary, 2014)
McLaren, Colin. Mafioso. Hachette Australia, Sydney, 2022. Pg. 180
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/554-mafioso-the-octopus-s-tentacles

Final Harvest

08. February 2026 · Write a comment · Categories: Environment, Garden, Gardening, Landscape, Landscape Photograpy, Photography, Places, Portrait · Tags: chard varieties, kale varieites, pepper varieties, Pepperfield Farm, seed savers David Cavagnaro, squash varieties, sustainable farming, vegetable cultivars, vegetable varieties

Photo Essay by Alice Gebura

All Photos by Alice Gebura Copyright 2022-2026 All Rights Reserved

In a valley in Decorah, Iowa, David Cavagnaro has carried on a sustainable, life–affirming farm, the Pepperfield Project, for 30 years. On two acres he he has been growing 98% of his food needs while preserving biodiversity and food quality through seed saving. The hundreds of cultivars he planted include 200 varieties of tomatoes and 45 varieties of beans. On the eve of his retirement, in 2022, I drove out to Decorah to photograph and interview this man who pioneered seed savers and self-sufficient farming back in the 1970s. At age 80, David is selling his farm. My photos are accompanied by David’s words, in his voice, as he talks about plants, farming and seed saving.

The Back Story

“The most important legacy for me growing up in my Italian family is that we ate together. We ate together for every meal–all of them. If we had company, we stayed at the table and more food came out and conversation got deeper and deeper.

That was part of the inspiration for founding the Pepperfield Project. I wanted to create a place based on a lifestyle where we would be growing all of these beautiful heirlooms. Where people could come and learn the second half of seed saving, which is how to grow the material and cook with the vegetables and appreciate all of the wonderful ethnic heritages that went into the development of these varieties around the world.

In 1987 I came to Decorah to be the first garden supervisor at Seed Savers Exchange. After some years I found and bought some land in the area. It was in a valley and it was all pasture. Everything you see–the vegetable gardens, the fruit trees, the flowers, the house–have all been put in over the years. The project also includes the hospital garden at Winnesheik Medical Center where I maintain a one-acre garden that yields about 2,000 pounds of food for the hospital cafeteria.”

“Before Pepperfield I had started a farm project in California. I bought a raw piece of land, 180 acres. When I started that project we wanted a garden orchard and teaching program. I went back to every fruit tree I had ever planted or gotten fruit from and ended up with 150 fruit tree varieties and 45 types of grapes by the time I got done. I got them from abandoned homesteads and Italian family gardens that were somebody’s creation at one time. I got there after the fact. All these places were run down. They’d gone back to nature. The fruit trees had gone feral. I reconstituted them into my orchard.

For 12 years I had sunk my life into that place, all the while thinking that was my last stand. I ended up having to bail after going through a divorce and trying to go through Land Partners. Then the land ended up getting subdivided and all the terrible things happened that I didn’t want to have happen. So I had to walk away from everything that I had done.

The guy who I sold it to promised he was going to keep the garden but it didn’t happen. The whole thing was abandoned. I didn’t return to it for five years, which is nothing. In that five years everything had gone back to nature. 75% of the trees had died. The fences were broken down. The wild pigs had gotten in. The grape vines had grown over other stuff. It was the secret garden all gone downhill just like all the places I had collected the stuff from in the first place.

But guess what. I just recently got an email that said “I’m the new owner of your old place.” He wants my input because he’s reconstituting the orchard, putting it all back together and going forward with his own project.

So I have learned to just let go.

I’ve been here for 30 years and now I need to be true to my last chapter which is to devote my time to my writing which I can’t do if I’m managing all these gardens. I bought a house in town. It will be hard for me not to be living in the country surrounded by nature. There is a lot of letting go for me.”

The fence provides a trellis for growing gourds.

Tour of the Farm

“I grew three kinds of kale this year. I call most kales pot scrubbers because they’re kind of tough. Siberian is tender and delicious, it has these beautiful, easy-to-process leaves.”

Siberian Kale

“Russian Red is the most tender of all.”

Russian Red Kale

“Dinosaur kale is my favorite for the edible landscape although it’s a little harder to process. It’s beautiful for its foliage– the reptilian texture of the leaves– and color. It looks great next to this Old Timey Blue collard, an heirloom from Seed Savers.”

Dinosaur Kale

“I started with this variety of chard, Verde A Costa Bianca, from a wonderful catalog, Seeds from Italy that sells only imported Italian varieties. Swiss chard with these really wide stems is popular in my Italian family. I put the plants in the root cellar and over-wintered them. Now I have my own seed from that variety. Look at the size of these leaves! Swiss chard was the first thing I ever cooked as a child when I decided to be creative in cooking. With these big leaves I realized I could fill them with a stuffing, then fold them over and dip them in some egg batter and bread crumbs and fry them in olive oil. I just made that up. It was the first thing I ever cooked because we had these big leaves for eating. You can also cut the stems and lightly steam them, then marinate them in olive oil and vinegar.”

Verde A Costa Bianca Chard

“This is what happens to okra when you let it go to seed. They get huge. This is a wonderful heirloom variety from the deep south, Choppee, that Seed Savers carries. When I open them up you can see the row of little seeds. There’s a row like that in every pod. This one pod would be enough, but you know me–I save enough seed to plant the whole world.”

Chopee Okra

“This is a perennial fennel. I collected the seeds for this in Cinque Terra in Italy. There, in that horrible rocky soil on the terraces where they grow the grapes, there was this knee-high weed. I collected some of its seeds. It doesn’t have the big seeds like the ones in California that grow roadside. I grow it as a pollinator attractor. I grow a lot of these herbs for the scent as I walk by.”

Italian Fennel

“One of my favorite varieties of pepper, Lipstick, was developed by a friend of mine, Rob Johnston, who founded Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Rob and I were on the Seed Savers board for many years. Rob and his partner, Janika Eckert, did all of the pepper development for Johnny’s. Lipstick won an award, has a great flavor and really beautiful color.”

“Another favorite that I grow every year is Feher Ozon Paprika sweet peppers. Although the plant is small it is reliably loaded with peppers every year. In this climate this is the one that I grow for seed and prepare for the freezer for winter to put in ratatouille and so forth. The name is Hungarian and it’s a cream color in its immature stage, turning to a bright orange-red. A true yellow pepper, such as yellow bell pepper, goes from green to bright yellow.”

“Everybody in the Midwest should grow the Feher Ozon Paprika. You won’t find any other pepper – and I’ve grown them all – that is that reliable every year. These are early and super productive. Because the plants are small they bloom early before it gets too hot. Once they set fruit, peppers need a lot of heat– but not before. Do you remember when we had that super-hot dry spell early in the season this year? When the temperature gets that hot the plants won’t set fruit and make seed. Even tomatoes won’t set fruit when it gets that hot. A lot of my peppers were only coming into bloom at the time, yet these little guys had already bloomed and set fruit. I recommend this type to everybody.”

“In this squash patch I’m growing a dozen varieties that I’m saving seed for, besides what I eat and feed to the chickens. I use a ribbon to mark the squash I’ll use as seed savers. To make seeds there has to be plant sex. The pollen from the male stamen on one flower has to move to the female stigma in another flower. Big bees will do the job, but here I hand pollinate them myself and then cover them so the bees can’t get in and cross pollinate the varieties.

A friend living in South Africa sent me the seeds for this African variety called Flat White Boer. It’s very flat – it’s like a big platter. I cut these in half and feed it to my chickens. My chickens are so spoiled I have to bake it to soften it up for them. It’s also a very good eating squash. I’ve been growing it for many, many years.”

Flat White Boer Squash

“This Chursonskaya is from Russia. I put a tag on it to mark it. So I don’t get mixed up when I harvest them, I write the name directly on the squash, copied from the tag.”

“One of my favorite winter squash for beauty is from France: Rouge Vif D’Etampes, nicknamed the Cinderella pumpkin.”

Marina di Chioggia Squash

“The tamest chickens are Penny and Cutie Pie, but even the skittish ones know their names. The window on the chicken coop stays open during the day. I close it just before dark. I go in and I put my arms around them. I put my head between them and talk sweet nothings into their ears. They love it. They snuggle up. It’s the best part of my day when I put the chickens to bed.”

Seed Saving & Food Preservation

in the winter, lemon trees grow in pots in the house.

Root Cellar

Thank you to Tess Galati for assisting with sound recording and Harry Chalmiers for assisting with lighting and camera set up.

Postscript 2026

David sold his farm and the new owners are carrying on David’s work as part of their organization, Rerooted Connections. David writes that they have advanced a magnificently created plan, in coordination with many in the neighborhood and larger community, to form a land- and nature- based small high school with an individually motivated educational philosophy. So the vision lives on.

Remix

07. October 2023 · Write a comment · Categories: Critique, Music & Video, Performance, Performing Arts · Tags: La La Human Steps, Louise Lecavalier, not ballet

Mash up sound score and parody by Alice Gebura

REMIX: La La Human Steps Human Sex 1985

You gotta love the inimitable Louise Lacavalier. Thankfully Rainald Di Cesare and Bernar Hébert got her on film. This is a clip from a film directed by Di Cesare and Hébert. La La Human Steps, a Canadian dance company (1980-2015), performs Human Sex 1985. Lead soloist Louise Lacavalier turns the tables on ballet and its traditional prima ballerina. With this clip I provide the lead in and fade out, otherwise the clip is exactly as Di Cesare and Hébert filmed it.

Randall Kay and Louis Seize wrote (and perform on stage) the punk score that’s perfect for this choreography. But watching the film I had deja vu all over again. My mash-up sound track turns the tables a bit as well.

https://vimeo.com/872026678

For more of the incredible Louise Lacavalier, see her web site.

Body Archive – Butoh and Shared Somatic Experience

08. February 2023 · 1 comment · Categories: Critique, Performing Arts · Tags: Anpo protests, body archive, butoh, gender in dance, gender politics, Hiroshima atom bomb, Kasuo Ohno, somatic dance, Tatsumi Hijikata, ue o muite, war

Essay by Alice Gebura

Contemporary Dance for Japan

Butoh began in the 1950s as a reaction to traditional Japanese theater and western culture as it was being imposed on Japan during the post-war occupation. The founders, Kazuo Ohno and Tatsumi Hijikata, wanted a contemporary art form that was distinctly Japanese. The following performance is by Kazuo Ohno.

On the river bank we see struggle and frustration as Ohno pushes against and tries to climb an impenetrable wall. Is the wall a metaphor for power structures? social structures? The flower and ribbon band in his hair are the ornaments of a little girl. Indeed he expresses a child’s wonderment at times as well as spatial disorientation. The movement though is frail and jerky, not youthful, also not stereotypically feminine—the many contradictions within the frame resist categorization. The bent and hesitant movements become markers of psychic condition, not of a particular story or person. The ruffles tied on the back of the shirt are feminine, yet also suggest a strait jacket. While the white face and body paint are characteristic of Kabuki theater, butoh reassess its meaning in its allusion to beings covered in nuclear ash. Trauma is visibly evident and on a par with gender in this mining of the archive within the body. The movements invoke emotions that surely all have experienced across any gender, social class, or culture.

This is from the 1980 Experimental Theater Festival in Nancy, France. The music is “O mio babbino caro” from Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi, sung by Maria Callas. Ohno said that Callas and Puccini were “close to the Japanese.” Ohno used music and images to trigger his improvisatory movement. He said of his somatic performances that he found within himself both a little girl and a dying woman, often his mother.

“A Corpse Standing in Desperation”

Butoh emerged at the intersections of collective trauma, expressionist dance performance and East/West identity conflicts within 20^th century Japan. In butoh’s somatic performances, whether intended or not, political statements emerge as personal and collective sufferings archived within the body are revealed.

Ohno says:

“Alive, in each and every one of us, are countless individuals whose lifetime experiences, joys, sorrows, angers, doubts, and so forth have been successively passed down from one generation to the next. The physical form I assume now is but the fruit of what I’ve inherited from those who have existed before me. What, you might ask, has become of our ancestors’ ideas and emotions? Where do you suppose our creativity springs from? There’s no way that it springs forth from our finite and limited knowledge of life.”

Butoh, War, and Gender

Turn of the century Japan (Meiji restoration) was an imperialist, colonizing power, invading and occupying Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan, and northern China by the 1930s. Such militarism exacted draconian and gendered expectations of its citizens. All males were conscripted into military service. Although not punished, those who were unable to pass the physical requirements were often socially ostracized. The female role was clear: marry and produce more soldiers. Poor females were sold to brothels where they were sex workers (Karayuki-san) at military outposts. “The young women were told that their bodies belonged to the state and that they constituted a form of female army.”¹ This structuring of gender according to the needs of a nation is not unusual in human history. In Japan, however, loyalty and sacrifice for the state were particularly significant. Although individual rights were under discussion at the time, these were clearly subordinate to the goals of the patriarchal and warring state. While collective trauma due to war is not unique to Japan, it was experienced there most profoundly when atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima instantly killed 80,000 people. Another 80,000 died later from radiation injuries. The intensity burned shadows of objects and people into the cityscape, the Hiroshima shadows. Photo: Public Domain

Male homosexuality had “a socially and culturally distinctive form well before the modern period.”²Gendered, state-prescribed roles changed after World War II. The new constitution written during the occupation, heavily influenced by the American occupiers, “defined marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman.”³ In post-war Japan the Japanese male was now an Americanized heterosexual. For example, a man was not eligible for promotion at work until he was married and had children. The female was now a consumer yet still relegated to marriage and family. Political trauma continued with the ANPO treaty between Japan and the United States with its militaristic right-wing dictates and the establishment of US military bases in Japan.

The Anpo protests, the largest in Japanese history (including a brutal police response), occurred when the US-Japan security treaty was being renewed, 1959-1960. The song by Kyu Sakamoto is about the loss he felt after the protests failed. It was an international hit, selling millions of records.

Mining the Body Archive

Butoh emerged in mid-century Japan as a somatic practice. The underlying mechanism in butoh is to unearth the self. “Movements are discovered rather than imposed.”⁴ One result of butoh as a self-revelatory practice is that gender is fluid and destabilized. “The concepts of otherness and ambiguity, particularly with respect to gender identity and sexuality, permeate its narratives. Drag, androgyny and fluidity are staple elements.”⁵ Yet in viewing early butoh performers, gender can only be fully grasped by understanding the body as an archive of collective traumas: the traumas of “national body,” nuclear war, and political struggles.

Tatsumi Hijikata Photo: Public Domain

A male presenting as female challenges gendered roles as experienced during Japan’s Meiji restoration and post-war society. Ohno lived through both. His embodied femaleness is not a mature woman, not a mother, neither wise nor particularly functional, and not sexual—resisting the female roles of mother/sex-worker/functioning consumer. The deformed hand gestures, death-mask face, and tremulous shaking also reveal the trauma of wars and nuclear disaster, exposing psychic damage and “dark truths behind the Japanese social mask.”⁶Ohno’s performance in the video from Nancy, France is a complex response to the warring state and social mores regarding gendered roles.

Since its early practice butoh has spread globally and been adapted in numerous ways. Decades later what holds true throughout all of its different forms are:

The rejection of technique and the concept of a style or school
Movement is somatic. “Ohno believed that movement that was too big or too fast endangered his ideal of body-soul-unity, which requires that movements be directed by the soul.”⁷
Primal exploration of the dark side of the human experience
“Its hunched crawls, seizure-like convulsions, and silent screams aim to uncover ugly or uncomfortable truths.”⁸

More Performances

“Words do their job in most circumstances, but movement can probably say a lot more.” – Kazuo Ohno

Notes

Warren, James F. “Review: Sandakan Brothel No. 8: An Episode in the History of Lower-Class Japanese Women”. Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context. Issue 4, September 2000.
Tamagawa, Masami. “Same-Sex Marriage in Japan”. Journal of GLBT Family Studies. 12 (2): 160-187.
Makoto, Furukawa, and Angus Lockyer. “The Changing Nature of Sexuality: The Three Codes Framing Homosexuality in Modern Japan.” S.-Japan Women’s Journal. English Supplement, no. 7, 1994, pp. 98–127.
George, Cassidy. “Queer Butoh: Finding Belonging in the Dance of Darkness”. The New York Times. June 21, 2020.
Ibid.
Masakatsu, Gunji. “Butoh and Taboo”. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (1st ed.). Routledge (2018).
Schwellinger, Lucia. “Ohno Kazuo, Biography and methods of movement creation”. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (1st ed.). Routledge (2018).
George, Cassidy. “Queer Butoh: Finding Belonging in the Dance of Darkness”. The New York Times. June 21, 2020.

Bibliography

Hiroshima Mon Amour. Screenplay by Margueritte Duras. Dir. Alain Resnais. Prod. Anatole Dauman. Perf. Emanuelle Riva and Eiji Okada. Argos Films, 1959. Film.

Gadu. https://doushinbutoh.com/about

George, Cassidy. “Queer Butoh: Finding Belonging in the Dance of Darkness”. The New York Times. June 21, 2020.

Jones, Colin. “After the Uprising, The Anpo treaty protests and the unmaking of Japan’s postwar left.” The Nation. March 3, 2020.

Kazuko, Kuniyoshi. “On the Eve of the Birth of Ankoku Butoh, Postwar Japanese modern dance and Ohno Kazuo”. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (1st ed.). Routledge (2018).

Makoto, Furukawa, and Angus Lockyer. “The Changing Nature of Sexuality: The Three Codes Framing Homosexuality in Modern Japan.” U.S.-Japan Women’s Journal. English Supplement, no. 7, 1994, pp. 98–127.

Masakatsu, Gunji. “Butoh and Taboo”. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (1st ed.). Routledge (2018).

Mezur, Katherine. “Butoh’s Genders, Men in dresses and girl-like women”. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (1st ed.). Routledge (2018).

Michio, Armitsu. “From Vodou to Butoh, Hijikarta Tatsumi, Katherine Dunham, and the trans-Pacific remaking of blackness”. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (1st ed.). Routledge (2018).

Ohno, Kazuo and Ohno, Yoshito. Kazuo Ohno’s World, from without & within. Weslyan University Press (2004).

Schwellinger, Lucia. “Ohno Kazuo, Biography and methods of movement creation”. The Routledge Companion to Butoh Performance (1st ed.). Routledge (2018).

Stein, Bonnie Sue. “Butoh: ‘Twenty Years Ago We Were Crazy, Dirty, and Mad.’” The Drama Review: TDR, vol. 30, no. 2, 1986, pp. 107–126.

Tamagawa, Masami. “Same-Sex Marriage in Japan”. Journal of GLBT Family Studies. 12 (2): 160-187.

Warren, James F. “Review: Sandakan Brothel No. 8: An Episode in the History of Lower-Class Japanese Women”. Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asian Context. Issue 4, September 2000.

Molony, Barbara. “Women’s Rights, Feminism, and Suffragism in Japan, 1870-1925. Pacific Historical Review, vol. 69, no. 4, 2000, pp. 639–661.

At the Farm

23. July 2022 · 1 comment · Categories: Environment, Portrait, Portrait & Still Life

Some of my favorite farm photos from over the years with my horse and animal friends. People friends, too.

Re-rooting – an Exhibit at Darat al Funun in Amman, Jordan

01. July 2022 · Comments Off · Categories: Visual Arts

Darat al Funun is an art museum in Amman, Jordan built on the site of an ancient Greek altar to Hercules (you can still see it), the ruins of a 6th century Byzantine church, and the compound of Ottoman administrators. It features contemporary Arabic art and rotating exhibits on social issues. It sits atop one of Amman’s beautiful seven hills. While visiting in May, 2022 I was particularly struck by their exhibit “Re-rooting.” While I’ve been involved in conservation and environmental issues at various times in my life, this exhibit presented information that was new to me and gave me another perspective on the mess created by the human need for endless profit at the expense of everything else. Knowing the exhibit would never get to America, I photographed some of it and present it here as a way to share the information. At the end of this post is a link to the web page at Darat al Funum with all the artists’ names and further info.

This is the mid level of the compound with the galleries for rotating exhibits. The bowls of hay are symbolic of the loss of connection between the community and the animals that feed us.

The Wheat gallery, part of Re-rooting.

The story of wheat and bread in Jordan is one aspect of Re-rooting. I can’t reproduce the entire show here such as the videos, which included an interview with an elder making bread in the traditional way. In the other galleries were presentations on other agricultural/political topics. I do want to include something that I found fascinating – the display on Jaffa oranges. It explains one of the reasons why the British empire stuck its greedy nose into Palestine in the first place. It turns out the answer is citrus fruit. In the 1800s the British navy ruled the seas and to do so before refrigeration, etc. it needed citrus fruits to prevent scurvy in its sailors.

For more information on the exhibit, see https://daratalfunun.org/?event=re-rooting

My Favorite Event Photos

25. August 2021 · 1 comment · Categories: Event

Event photography is about candid shots, informal portraits and groups. From the thousands of photos in my “Event Photography” archive I’ve selected my favorites. These appeal to me because they capture something human, fun, or unexpected.

Lake Pepin and Frontenac, MN

12. October 2020 · Comments Off · Categories: Landscape Photograpy · Tags: fall foliage, Frontenac State Park, Lake Pepin, Mississippi River

My photo buddy Barry and I drove south along the Mississippi River at the peak of fall foliage season and captured some color.

Voyageurs Natl Park: Scenes from a vacation during COVID-19

18. September 2020 · 8 comments · Categories: Landscape Photograpy

We rented a houseboat and trolled the waters of Voyageurs National Park. Just the 3 of us and the woods.

We towed a motor boat at the back of the houseboat and took it out to explore the park. There are no roads or bridges – you can only get around by water.

Exploring Namakan Lake

Mitchell Bay on Namakan Lake

Rocky wrestles with the outboard.

Kettle Falls Hotel, the bar with slanted floor. You get there by boat of course.

Hiking near the hotel.

At the edge of Randolph Bay, Namakan Lake

Breakfast on a houseboat. The ladder in the background leads to the “penthouse” bedroom. It has room for a double mattress and the ceiling is about 4 feet high.