by Bill Dal Cerro | Apr 1, 2024 | Uncategorized
Back on December 3rd, 2023, the Chicago Tribune’s Commentary section carried a full-page article related to gambling in the city. The article was in response to the on-going controversy of allowing a new casino to open up downtown. A public official griped,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 18, 2024 | Uncategorized
“Nevertheless, she persisted.” This modern-day feminist phrase became a national sensation at the 2017 attorney general confirmation hearings for Senator Jeff Session, who found himself the subject of Senator Liz Warren’s wrath. Afterward,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 9, 2024 | Uncategorized
A few blogs ago, I wrote about the rise of Irish-born actors currently taking Hollywood by storm: Cillian Murphy, Barry Keoghan, Paul Mescal, et. al. Victor McLaglen in The Informer (1935) With St. Patrick’s Day coming up, I decided to rent the famous 1935...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Feb 20, 2024 | Uncategorized
“Old soldiers never die,” General MacArthur said, “they just fade away.” Old mob shows never die, either, nor do they just fade away. A book by Mark Kamine is out called, On Locations: Lessons Learned from My Life On Set with The Sopranos and...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Feb 10, 2024 | Uncategorized
Readers who endure harsh winters will understand why I recently (late January) used my frequent flier miles to take a quick, four-day trip to California. Specifically, I fled to southern California, where I enjoyed blue skies and sunshine and also managed to...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jan 22, 2024 | Uncategorized
They’ve come a long way from Barry Fitzgerald’s irascible priest in 1944’s Going My Way. Who? Irish actors, who seem to be challenging Australians as the dominant Anglo group now quietly conquering Hollywood. Aside from long-established transplant...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jan 6, 2024 | Uncategorized
A New Year (2024) brings with it zero progress on the issue of anti-Italian media bias. Case in point: The NFL. Note the difference in coverage between two quarterbacks: Tommy DeVito of the New York Giants and Joe Flacco of the long-suffering Cleveland Browns. ...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Dec 11, 2023 | Uncategorized
As the Christmas season is upon us, I want to do what American poet Robert Frost did and “take the road less travelled by.” Instead of the usual clichés, enjoyable though they may be (presepi, the Feast of the Seven Fishes, Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s, etc.), I’d...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Nov 20, 2023 | Uncategorized
Anyone following current politics has probably heard the phrase “Great Replacement Theory.” Put forth by French author Renaud Camus in 2010, the theory posits that Europeans–both in Europe and here in America–are being not-so-subtly replaced by...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Oct 30, 2023 | Uncategorized
For those of us sometimes accused of being “oversensitive” vis-à-vis world media coverage of Italy or Italian culture, check out this recent buzz of headlines from the BBC alone: “Italian PM Splits From Partner After Lewd Remarks”;...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Sep 19, 2023 | Uncategorized
Mrs. O’Leary (Alice Brady) is a symbol of the American pioneering spirit in In Old Chicago (1937) while Mamma Corleone (the late jazz singer Morgana King) raises a brood of law-breakers in The Godfather (1972) The musical Cabaret, play and film, got it wrong via...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Sep 11, 2023 | Uncategorized
Anyone following this year’s U.S. presidential run can’t help notice that two Americans of Indian descent, Biotech CEO Vivek Ramaswamy and former South Carolina governor/UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, are running on the GOP side. A few Dem pundits have already...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Aug 29, 2023 | Uncategorized
Summer is still with us, especially in Europe, where hot weather continues to flourish. On Wednesday, August 23rd, for example, the city of Milan hit 33 Celsius (close to 92 Fahrenheit), one of the hottest temperatures since 1763, the year in which weather temps began...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 31, 2023 | Uncategorized
After decades of Hollywood movies depicting Native Americans as red savages, along came Dances with Wolves, a cinematic game-changer. Whatever its faults — New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael mocked actor-director Kevin Costner with the mock-Indian name ‘Plays With A...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 22, 2023 | Uncategorized
Immigration has become such a hot-button issue in America that one forgets the Italian connections to it, both then and now. By then, I mean the so-called “Great Wave” of Italian immigrants between 1880 -1920, though Italians had already been here in the...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 3, 2023 | Uncategorized
To our fellow Americans, we of Italian heritage are simply seen as “cooks or crooks.” (Kudos to my colleague John Mancini for that very apt phrase). The reason why is very simple: Hollywood media defamation. Or, as the comedian Flip Wilson used to...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jun 7, 2023 | Uncategorized
Having recently visited Italy again for the first time since 2019 (from April 19th-May 4th), I decided to engage in that most clichéd of tourist activities: I took a cooking class. My chef, Giuseppe, was a Lucca native who does them out of his house for tourists. On...
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 29, 2023 | Uncategorized
In my last blog, I wrote about the new documentary on baseball icon Yogi Berra (It Ain’t Over), which I highly recommended. (Incidentally, it’s playing exclusively in theaters right now. As a film purist, I urge people to make the effort to see it there....
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 20, 2023 | Uncategorized
A new old-joke: What’s rarer than Haley’s Comet? Punchline: an unbashedly positive movie about Italian Americans. The last one was in 2014 with the film version (finally!) of WWII hero Louie Zamperini’s amazing life in Unbroken. It did so-so at...
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 11, 2023 | Uncategorized
As referenced in a previous blog, there is, oddly, a sudden glut of Hollywood films being released which have either Italian American characters or Italian American themes. The first one was Air, a look at how NIKE cut their famous shoe deal with a then-unknown,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 5, 2023 | Uncategorized
Hard to believe it’s been three years since COVID was declared a world health emergency. And one of its earliest victims? Italy. Canine greeters at a Lucca store In one of the cruelest historical ironies ever, Italy, one of Earth’s most aesthetically...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Apr 25, 2023 | Uncategorized
Looks like the clichéd Italian phrase popularized by the Swedish pop group Abba should have been applied to a new film. I deliberately did not mention Mafia Mamma in my last blog on current movies in the hopes that missives I sent to local Chicago papers about...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Apr 8, 2023 | Uncategorized
CNN recently shared an interesting story about Italy: Prime Minister Meloni’s government is supporting legislation which may fine corporations or governmental agencies for using English words in their documentations. According to CNN: Brew-SKET-ta ...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 31, 2023 | Uncategorized
According to the fun calendar I received last Christmas, March 28th is “Respect Your Cat Day.” Anyone who has visited Rome the past 20 years has noticed how its cat population overtook Torre di Largo Argentino, the square which also boasts the remains of...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 15, 2023 | Uncategorized
The idiom “Ray of Light” doesn’t just refer to an expression of hope in challenging times; it’s also the title of singer Madonna’s last big album, which took home a Grammy Award in 1998. I bring this up in defense of the rather brutal...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 6, 2023 | Uncategorized
Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry during the War of 1812 reported: “We have met the enemy and they are ours”. I’m sure everyone has heard this famous quote. As any self-respecting (i.e., self-educated) Italian American will tell you, it certainly applies...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Feb 18, 2023 | Uncategorized
I’m two weeks late to it but February 5th was officially World Nutella Day. I know: We need to detoxify the media – and our fellow Americans – from their addictive notion that Italian culture simply means “something edible.” But, just as African...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Feb 7, 2023 | Uncategorized
The recent Grammy Awards inspired this blog, the title of which is a spin on a famous song by the 1960s folk group the Kingston Trio: Where Have All the Flowers Gone? Once upon a time, Italian Americans gobbled up Grammys like Pac Man, and in every conceivable...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jan 20, 2023 | Uncategorized
Big-city American mayors have been in the news lately, specifically, Eric Adams in New York (decrying the busing of migrants to his city) and Lori Lightfoot in Chicago (the same, although she is also dealing with out-of-control crime). The first Asian American and...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Dec 31, 2022 | Uncategorized
Christmas Day is officially over and a new year begins. For the holidays, I bought a relative one of those popular new calendars which feature a “fun day” item listed for all 365 days of the year. Example: April 17, National Haiku Poem Day. July 20,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Dec 19, 2022 | Uncategorized
Finalmente! Eight years ago, at the 2014 World Cup Soccer Championships, Argentinian football great Lionel Messi missed a final penalty kick and hung his head in despair. Redemption came on Sunday, December 18th, 2022 however, when La Pulga (Spanish for “the...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Dec 5, 2022 | Uncategorized
What does beautiful Millennium Park in Abuja, Nigeria have to do with Italy? The Internet can be a mind-numbing rabbit hole but sometimes it yields some genuine nuggets. It started with an old YouTube clip I saw of the Black conservative Thomas Sowell (still...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Nov 27, 2022 | Uncategorized
A family member recently lamented the current chaos of our times – the political, racial, and sexual polarization in the U.S.– with the following comment: “I’m glad I grew up in the 1950s. Kids were allowed to be kids. You didn’t see this gun...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Nov 19, 2022 | Uncategorized
In my last blog, I noted how the mainstream media rarely delves into Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s ethnic background. From personal experiences with regular folk, I would guess it’s for the same reasons – that people either consider it unimportant or...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Nov 14, 2022 | Uncategorized
Last week was food, the conclusion of Stanley Tucci’s CNN series, Searching for Italy. This week, it’s national politics via the long-awaited midterms. As I type this blog (Saturday, November 12th), billionaire businessman Rick Caruso, a former Republican...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Oct 31, 2022 | Uncategorized
The final episode of Stanley Tucci’s CNN series Searching for Italy ** took us to Liguria and showcased its “rugged environment,” evidenced by God-like drone shots of the “angularity of its landscapes.” The episode’s opening scene...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Oct 24, 2022 | Uncategorized
In the latest episode of CNN’s Searching for Italy, actor Stanley Tucci continued his journey in southern Italy with a stop in Puglia (POOL-ya), located, as he says, “in the heel of Italy’s boot…with 500 miles of coastline and 60 million olive trees,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Oct 17, 2022 | Uncategorized
Week Two of CNN’s Searching for Italy, hosted by the ambulatory actor Stanley Tucci, took us to Sardegna (aka Sardinia), the large island off Italy’s coast frequently described with adjectives like rugged, mountainous, and implacable. Or as, Tucci’s...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Oct 10, 2022 | Uncategorized
Part Two of Season Two of CNN’s Searching for Italy began on Sunday, October 9th, the day before Columbus Day. And the first episode was auspicious: the series’ star and tour guide, actor Stanley Tucci, visited the ancestral region of both sets of his...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Oct 2, 2022 | Uncategorized
In an era allegedly dedicated to “wokeness” – that is, being attuned to how an American’s race, religion, ethnicity, or sexuality are portrayed in the media – it’s truly astonishing how Americans of Italian heritage continue to slip under the...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Sep 20, 2022 | Uncategorized
With the potential of Giorgia Meloni being selected as Italy’s first female prime minister on September 25th, it may be a good time to reflect that this isn’t a fluke. Though a long time coming, putting la bell’italia in the hands of an Italian woman...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Aug 31, 2022 | Uncategorized
A few blogs ago to quote the Carpenters’ famous song, (“seems like yesterday!”), I wrote about the boom-boom-boom, three-in-a-row celebrity deaths of Ray Liotta, James Caan, and Tony Sirico, all of whom profited considerably from mob movies. Sadly, I...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Aug 6, 2022 | Uncategorized
On the occasion of singer Tony Bennett’s 96th birthday (August 3rd), it’s sobering to recall his famous comment after the premiere of 1972’s mobster epic, The Godfather. To wit: “It’s a terrible, terrible film, just pernicious. Despite...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 31, 2022 | Uncategorized
It’s a familiar phrase: “Tutte le strade portano a Roma”: All roads lead to Rome. The phrase is literal: It refers to how the fabled Roman roads fanned out like spoke-wheels, encompassing the classical world. And it is also, of course, metaphorical:...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 26, 2022 | Uncategorized
Two down, two more to go (“Goodfellas,” 1990) One of my previous blogs was titled “The Unholy Three,” which mentioned the near-simultaneous passing of three Hollywood actors known for popularizing crude Italian gangster stereotypes: Paul...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 18, 2022 | Uncategorized
So weird how certain sports (i.e., soccer) can be played so passionately all over the world but yet barely register in the U.S. The same is true for singers. If you’re American, the name Paolo Nutini probably means nothing to you. But this 35 year-old...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 10, 2022 | Uncategorized
Actor Lon Chaney Sr, who specialized in macabre horror-film roles in the 1920s, appeared in one film titled, The Unholy Three. It was a 1925 melodrama about three circus performers who join forces to commit con jobs and burglaries. And if you’re familiar...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 4, 2022 | Uncategorized
With the Fourth of July upon us, it’s time to do what I always do every year: raise a glass of wine and salute Philip “Filippo” Mazzei, one of the literal Founding Fathers of our nation. Yes, he had a vowel at the end of his name. Cin cin! There used...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 2, 2022 | Uncategorized
Those who love Italian cinema know the name Guido from Federico Fellini’s famous 1963 film, 8½. Played by Marcello Mastroianni, Guido was the lead character, a famous film director suffering from a mental block, a condition exacerbated by sycophants, hangers-on,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jun 22, 2022 | Uncategorized
In most peoples’ minds, the state of Connecticut has very WASPy (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) associations: Yale University; “lace-curtain” wealthy families; and a Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (courtesy of Mark Twain, who once lived in...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jun 13, 2022 | Uncategorized
Recently, I did a ZOOM presentation sponsored by I AM Books in Boston on my 2015 book, Bebop, Swing and Bella Musica: Jazz and the Italian American Experience. The book, to which local Chicago writer David Anthony Witter also contributed, documents the amazing,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 23, 2022 | Uncategorized
Emperor Trajan among London’s Roman ruins In the final episode of Season Two of Searching for Italy, actor Stanley Tucci focused on his home city for the last ten years: London. And, shockingly, he and his crew actually made a classical reference – they noted...
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 16, 2022 | Uncategorized
If you like pork or lush Italian landscapes – or both – you probably enjoyed the latest installment of Stanley Tucci’s CNN series, Searching for Italy. Now in its second season, the show, which has one more episode to go, finally seems to be striking a decent...
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 9, 2022 | Uncategorized
On the May 8th episode of CNN’s Searching for Italy, actor Stanley Tucci and his crew visited one of his favorite parts of Italy: Piedmont. Unlike past episodes, this one had a bit more history than usual. It also managed to capture that region’s misty, autumnal...
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 7, 2022 | Uncategorized
Season Two of CNN’s “Searching for Italy” series with Stanley Tucci began on Sunday, May 1st. The show was scheduled two months earlier but was understandably interrupted by the tragic war in Ukraine. No matter. This only postponed the inevitable:...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Apr 18, 2022 | Uncategorized
After getting boos – along with Germany – in late February for balking against harsh sanctions against Russia via its invasion of Ukraine, Italy has more than come around. The Ukrainians who have already lived and worked there since the mid-2000s, mostly domestic...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Apr 11, 2022 | Uncategorized
What got lost in the Will Smith/Chris Rock smack-down at the Oscar ceremony is the “surprise” win for CODA, an indie movie about a deaf American fishing family on the East Coast (Gloucester, MA). Actually, indie in this sense only means they had to finance...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Apr 2, 2022 | Uncategorized
So was the inevitable reply of Felix Unger from Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple when responding to yet another mess created by his roommate, Oscar Madison. And so is this my reply to the annual Academy Awards ceremony, which managed to be doubly insulting to...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 21, 2022 | Uncategorized
As I go to press, I read that yet another COVID variant, currently spiking in Europe and Asia, may be headed our way: DA.2, aka “Deltacron.” We can only hope that, if it does come to pass, it doesn’t lead to a major surge. In the interim, however,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 7, 2022 | Uncategorized
On March 14, 1891, in New Orleans, Louisiana, 11 Italians found not guilty in a murder trial were dragged from their jail cells by a crowd estimated to be 5,000 strong, which promptly shot and hanged them. The victims of this massacre were memorialized on April 12,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Feb 20, 2022 | Uncategorized
The word of the day is “crypto currency,” that new-fangled monetary coinage taking the world by storm. The word “crypto” is derived from the Greek word kruptos, meaning “hidden” or “secret.” What about...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jan 22, 2022 | Uncategorized
Average Americans – including fellow Italian Americans – often express puzzlement, even frustration, with myself and others via our strong opposition to endless “mob movies.” Their responses are fairly predictable: “They’re just...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jan 11, 2022 | Uncategorized
For those who doubt the power of anti-Italian stereotypes in the media, or whether they exist at all in a ‘diversity-friendly’ era, consider that even Italian American women aren’t immune. Case in point: Ms. Melissa Schemmenti, a school-teacher...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Dec 13, 2021 | Uncategorized
As any proud Italophile knows, Christmas has deep Italic roots. The pagan Roman festival of Saturnalia – a week-long celebration of Saturn, the god of agriculture – was held between December 17 through December 23rd. Citizens put wreaths and other forms of shrubbery...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Nov 22, 2021 | Uncategorized
In a May 15th, 1983 New York Times Magazine article, “Italian Americans: Coming into their Own,” Stephen S. Hall celebrated the “official” arrival of the sons-and-daughters of Italy into America’s middle class. Quite accurately, he based...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Nov 1, 2021 | Uncategorized
Ever play the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game? In 1994, three college students, including an Italian American (Mike Ginelli), came up with a verbal parlor exercise in which actor Kevin Bacon is linked to “every actor in the universe” via a process of...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Oct 23, 2021 | Uncategorized
Why are fictional Italians who behave like violent Neanderthals considered more “authentic” than living legends like Bennett? On CBS’ 60 Minutes a few weeks ago, reporter Anderson Cooper offered a profile of 95-year-old Tony Bennett, detailing the great crooner’s...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Sep 25, 2021 | Uncategorized
Things are so chaotic in our “dis-” United States that, although the next presidential election is three years away, people are already hurrying up and wishing it was next week. But, no matter who is nominated, there is a sure-fire issue that unites both...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Sep 6, 2021 | Uncategorized
Big Al with son Albert Francis, Chicago Tribune “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away,” General Douglas MacArthur famously noted in a speech to the U.S. Congress on April 19th, 1951. This dictum certainly isn’t true for old Italian...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Aug 23, 2021 | Uncategorized
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita…” begins the opening line of L’Inferno, the first part of Dante Alighieri’s three-part literary epic, La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy). It’s a line every Italian student can recite by...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Aug 9, 2021 | Uncategorized
An Italian named “Marcell Jacobs” shocked the world by winning the 100-meter race at the Tokyo Olympics, earning the title, “World’s Fastest Man.” But, just as in other historical examples, there is a woman in his background – in...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 24, 2021 | Uncategorized
Anti-Italian prejudice is found in the oddest places. A new local business opened up in my Chicago neighborhood a few summers ago: Local Goods, a simple little storefront place that specializes in knick-knacks highlighting the Windy City, both inexpensive (key chains,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 13, 2021 | Uncategorized
Though I found fault with actor Stanley Tucci’s recent CNN series on Italy – largely his irrelevant injection of politics into a food-based show – he is one of the few Italian American actors to publicly challenge anti-Italian movie stereotypes. One of his...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jun 13, 2021 | Uncategorized
It isn’t often that a lowly journalist like myself scoops the New York Times, but it happened: On June 4, 2021, covering the famous French Open Tennis Tournament in Paris, New York Times sports correspondent Matthew Futterman filed a story noting something...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jun 5, 2021 | Uncategorized
American history has caught up with the Tulsa Massacre of 1921, a race war that broke out between outraged white citizens who attacked an armed brigade of Black WWI vets trying to save a Black man from being lynched. But, did you know that one of the chief historians...
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 29, 2021 | Uncategorized
On May 24th, 2021, music fans celebrated when one of America’s greatest singer-songwriters, Bob Dylan (a nice Jewish Midwestern boy, born Robert Zimmerman in Duluth, Minnesota), celebrated his 80th birthday. It seems hard to believe that this iconic musical...
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 15, 2021 | Uncategorized
Variety magazine announced that comedians Ray Romano and Sebastian Maniscalco are teaming up for a “dramedy” about an Italian American high schooler whose love of basketball causes a ruckus within his family. It’s worth re-printing the film’s...
by Bill Dal Cerro | May 4, 2021 | Uncategorized
Prejudice: “an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, or race, or their supposed characteristics.” – MERRIAM-WEBSTER Dictionary When I mention anti-Italian prejudice, people giggle, though it wasn’t my...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Apr 26, 2021 | Uncategorized
As a fan of The Simpsons TV show, I’ve always found its mixture of irreverence and cultural awareness (i.e, spoofs of literary works) a bracing source of fun, both entertaining and enlightening. Just as the Monty Python troupe made me want to be an English...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Apr 21, 2021 | Uncategorized
You’ve heard the expression that it’s not ethical to speak ill of the dead; however, what if that dead person was a total scoundrel? I’m speaking of financial scammer Bernie Madoff, who passed away in prison last week. Madoff was one of the most prolific scammers in...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Apr 13, 2021 | Uncategorized
Anyone lucky enough to travel to Italy has probably visited one of the “Big Three” cities: Rome, Florence, and perhaps the most intriguing city of all: La Serenessima, aka, “The Serene One”, aka, Venice (Venezia in Italian). Every city in every nation on...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Apr 5, 2021 | Uncategorized
Next to the late Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues), Dick Wolf is probably American television’s best-known creator of recurring dramatic series – specifically, his Law and Order franchise, which has been on the small screen, in various incarnations, since 1990....
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 29, 2021 | Uncategorized
Whenever he got exasperated by the antics of his skinny friend, Stan Laurel, his partner, Oliver Hardy, would sigh, “Oh, Stanley!”– which rather sums up my reaction to Stanley Tucci’s six-part CNN series, Searching for Italy. Now that’s...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 22, 2021 | Uncategorized
In the final episode of CNN’s Searching for Italy, actor Stanley Tucci says he ate some of the best food he’s ever tasted in Italy. I think I know the possible reason why, backed up by much of what he highlights and says in this episode: It’s because...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 16, 2021 | Uncategorized
In this week’s episode of CNN’s Searching for Italy, actor Stanley Tucci returns to Firenze, known to the world by its Anglicized name, Florence. As a twelve-year-old, Tucci and his siblings lived in the great city while his father, also named Stanley,...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 9, 2021 | Uncategorized
The Romans called it Mediolanum, and in 286 the emperor Diocletian made it head of the Western Roman Empire. And it was there, in A.D. 313, that Emperor Constantine issued his famous Edict of Milan, paving the way for the rise of Christianity in Europe. Stanley Tucci...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Mar 1, 2021 | Uncategorized
CNN’s Searching for Italy, the weekly food-travel series with actor Stanley Tucci, visited Rome on Feb. 21st and Bologna on Feb. 28th. Although I considered the first episode, set in Naples, to be routine, the episodes on Rome and Bologna showed a wee uptick of...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Feb 23, 2021 | Uncategorized
At a time when Americans are so sadly split between political divides, it’s nice to recall a well-known American who unified everyone: Lawrence Peter Barra, better known by his baseball name, “Yogi.” The month of January was so tumultuous – with the...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Feb 15, 2021 | Uncategorized
It is a famous phrase: “Vedi Napoli e poi muori”– See Naples and die! The point is that Italy’s third-largest city is such an overwhelming feast for the senses – of food, art, history, museums, music, etc. – that there is nothing left to see once...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Feb 5, 2021 | Uncategorized
In 2018, the “Tucci Gang” of New York made a big splash in the national media. Was this yet another Italian criminal group, a modern incarnation of New York’s infamous “Five Families,” who dominated organized crime in that city for nearly...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jan 23, 2021 | Uncategorized
It is no surprise to see that President Biden selected Gina Raimondo, the governor of Rhode Island, to be in his cabinet, specifically, as his U.S. Commerce Secretary. Raimondo is the latest in a long line of strong Italian American women in politics – a link which is...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jan 6, 2021 | Uncategorized
“Old soldiers never die, they just fade away,” General MacArthur famously said. Would that the same were true for American filmmakers who’ve made their careers exploiting crude mobster and moron stereotypes of Italian Americans in popular culture. Such a person is...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Dec 29, 2020 | Uncategorized
Last October, Abigail Napp, an editor at La Cucina Italiana, a national cooking magazine available in Eataly stores in the U.S., asked me to write a “food piece” for Italian Heritage Month. I tried to go beyond the usual simple fare by adding an ingredient...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Sep 15, 2020 | Uncategorized
They are a staple of modern television, and anyone who has watched political speeches or COVID briefings sees their presence: interpreters for the deaf, standing off to the sidelines to translate important information for non-hearing viewers. Indeed, every September...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Aug 24, 2020 | Uncategorized
In a letter to fellow psychologist Marie Bonaparte (yes, a great grand-niece to the Corsican-born Italian emperor, original family name: Buonaparte), Sigmund Freud famously asked, “What do women want”? Though he never found an answer, he did once write that “women...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Aug 4, 2020 | Uncategorized
As a film purist, I believe movies were made to be seen where they belong – in a movie theater where, on a 60-foot blank white canvas, ghostly images projected in the dark can fully engage our imaginations. Watching a film on a TV monitor, no matter how large, still...
by Bill Dal Cerro | Jul 29, 2020 | Uncategorized
Anyone who loves science, or who at least pays attention to American popular culture, knows the name Neil deGrasse Tyson. Since the late-1990s, via his lectures, books, and TV shows, Dr. Tyson has surpassed his mentor, Carl Sagan, as our nation’s most well-known...
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