Chronicles Of Old Los Angeles Exploring The Devilish History Of The City Of The Angels by James Roma

Chronicles Of Old Los Angeles Exploring The Devilish History Of The City

Of The Angels by James Roman is the account from the birth to recent times of a special city: the one that created the most lucrative and beautiful activity in the world: cinema. If Los Angeles is now synonime of cinema, stars, showbiz, you must know that the past centuries was a land populated by a lot of Native Americans. They lived peacefully and the arrival of Europeans broke their harmony forever.

Los Angeles, at that time was called Yang-na. These Native Americans were fishermen mainly and they stayed naked all the time. They believed in the afterlife and maybe a tradition adopted by the so-called white man, they practiced cremation; they also loved hallucinogens.

The real big problem appeared when a big colony of catholic imported many dangerous european illness. Native American's bodies were not prepared for them and more than 6000 of them died abruptly.

After this episode, the birth of Los Angeles. A city with a complicated life-story as you will see, but plenty of fascination. The book will drive you at the discovery of the first pioneers of cinema for later offering to you also the fascination of the important love-stories born in Hollywood; one of the saddest episodes of all the times the assassination of Bob Kennedy the brother of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on 1968. That hotel closed forever and then destroyed. 

This book can't end without a complete tour in the city of stars, angels, sun.

Tour One is about El Pueblo and Chinatown; the second Bunker Hill, the third one Hollywood, the fourth Hollywood Heights, then  Sunset Strip and Beverly Hills for ending with Santa Monica and Venice Beach.

A paradisiac guide, pretty informative and historic, for a dreaming city!

I thank Museyon Books for the copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Billie Holiday The Last Interview and Other Conversations with an introduction by Khanya Mtshali

Why reading this book: Billie Holiday The Last Interview and Other

Conversations with an introduction by Khanya Mtshali? Because it is the most authentic portrait that you will obtain thanks to a series of meeting with this beloved singer, real, without filters. Music, life, dreams, her additions, racism, and much more.

Billie Holiday was a complicated person because, just, her life has been complicated; plus she was born black in a world still dominated by white people and where black needed to fight all the times for obtaining equal rights.

Her life started very shockingly: once raped she was sent to Catholic reformatory school for two years and then reunited with her mother, they went to NYC where they started to work in the sex business. Billie Holiday was just 14.

But it hasn't been just a conflictual life because of sex, but also because of her nymerous addictions; alcohol, heroine. She couldn't live anymore without heroine, she confessed once in an interview.

As written in this book: "It would seem to cast judgment on those who, like Holiday, discovered the best and worst versions of themselves at the bottom of a bottle, or the sharpest end of a needle. Addiction is lonely, hard, and exhausting, especially for women addicts born poor or working-class, who are rarely given any real shot at redemption."

Highly recommended.

I thank Melville for the copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Laura Slattery and the Gubbio Project in our city!

I didn't sleep very well that night and I cried for the joy as well. I would have met in fact   in person the ex coordinator of the Gubb

io Project an association located inSan Francisco that I follow from its birth and that I found for casualty on the net more than 14 years ago.

I thought that maybe it was a good idea sharing the news of the arrival of Laura but then we decided that it was better to keep a low profile. I was happy and I thought that, after all, that news was mine, that story followed by me in the past and I just wanted to enjoy the moment. 

2005 I was becoming a journalist. Life sounded great, I was plenty of joy and I was working with enthusiasm. Beautiful and fertile years, I personally was intrigued by all that "international news" in which Gubbio was the main protagonist in the world. 

I searched for the most diversified news. A writer, Emma, from Kent, decided to call one of her children's book Gubbio ; Regina painted corners of our city. I still remember the moment I discovered the Gubbio Project. It was a beautiful and sunny morning. I felt immediately attraction for this Important, wonderful, stunning novelty.

"Wow! Look what they're doing in San Francisco. Should I contact them, Carlo?" Carlo, our vice-chief editor said me immediately to do that.

Father Louie Vitale, from italian origin called the project Gubbio in honor of the city that donated the legend of Saint Francis and the Wolf, a metaphor for telling to people that also a brigant could be tamed using kidnness, help and a gentle spirit. The Gubbio was born on 2004.

Homeless in San Fransisco area  are a large community and at the Saint Boniface a church situated in one of the poorest corners of San Francisco, the Tenderloin they tried to help making the difference. 

Fr.Louie thought that it would have been possible after all to offer a pew where to sleep to all the homeless in search of a place where to sleep in. When I interviewed the first coordinator of the project, Michelle Roder, I  remember that Fr.Louie was still in jail because an activist.

Michelle told me largely of the project and the news appeared in our free press Gubbio7.

With the years I would have folloowed the project always more closely. There was an interruption, a sort ot: "What direction do we want to give at the project?" because of course everything can become more perfect and beauty. Michelle enjoyed so much working for the Gubbio and with the homeless  that she decided, when she married her husband, of inviting also all the homeless in a project of inclusivity and in one of the most important moments of her existences; she really loved it. 

The project started to flying with the arrival as coordinator of Laura Slattery. Laura is an energetic, absolutely stunning character and woman, someone who wants results; she knows how to obtain them, there is to add this.

I had this idea of her and I was right. I did not sleep at all that night, so I was in the city earlier, so I drunk a peach tea waiting for her arrival.I thought at the time passed by, at what it meant having built these contacts so distants from me and I thought at the contraction, positive in this case, of the internet and reality and.. world. In the past no one would have known the Gubbio Project in our city because, simply, there wouldn't never been the possibility. The net, with all its negativities can be splendid sometimes. Laura arrived at big steps and with a warm smile. 

To me it was a dream to seeing her. We exchanged a lot of e-mails in the past and I tried to give a lot of coverage to the Gubbio.

She wore casual clothes and a shirt of the Gubbio Project. She was accompanied by her wife, pretty shy, and we enjoyed a wonderful morning and afternoon. A fearless lady, our meeting under Le Logge dei Tiratori donated us a first tea where we started a conversation about the Gubbio and the importance of wolves in our communities for giving back to the environment the old assetts, sometimes lost thanks to the introduction of other animals. Wolves are not just big sheep eaters.

Laura told me that this one was the second time to her in Italy. The first time she flew in our country she took part at a humanitarian meeting in North of Italy. For her wife this one was the first time. The place where we started the visit of the city was the church of San Francesco and I told to Laura the importance of this city and that old structure, walls still preserved, for Francis. Francis abandoned his family, his social status for the unknown and Gubbio and that friars helped him to trying to figure out what kind of future and aspiration to develop.

It was a revelation.

Then we decided to dedicate time at The Palazzo dei Consoli.

We stopped by at the church of Don Matteo, San Giovanni. Laura found this church more sober. We then went at the Palazzo dei Consoli taking several pictures, although maybe the funniest one at the Bar Ducale where I insisted for  taking a picture of Laura and her wife sat in the table where Don Matteo and the maresciallo Cecchini loved to playing at chees in the beloved fiction. Laura didn't know Don Matteo or Terence Hill. I told her that the series is inspired at Murder she Wrote the masterpiecve with Angela Lansbury but that in this case case the detective is not a writer but a priest. 

"Don't you know Terence Hill?" He spends more time in your country than not in Italy..He lives in New Mexico...".An introduction with pictures, biography, Bud Spencer and Trinità. We visited an art exhibit and then the church of San Domenico, taking pictures in the little bridge of San Martino.

Laura told me during our visits that the American pews of Saint Boniface are positioned differently in comparison of our pews for permitting to the visitors and their so-called sacred sleep a good night. Once in San Domenico she  didn't forget of adding that in the back part of the church the volunteer of the Saint Boniface give to the homeless something to eat in the morning. Laura remarks that the Catholic Church of Saint Boniface doesn't offer breakfasts everyday, while the episcopalian church connected with them, does it. Not only: she also told me that the father of her wife was an episcopalian pastor. 

Laura left the Gubbio because of the poor health situation of her mother. "She lived in Los Angeles. We didn't spend recently a lot of time together, but she was happy that I was there accompanying her in the final trip of the existence." She has a sister. "She lives in Ireland and she is married with a man pretty irish also in his name."

The project with the time became always more important thanks also to the support of Martin and Charlie Sheen, two beloved American actors ."Charlie donated a great amount of money, 250.000 dollar at the Gubbio and when we received his donation, he told us that this one was pocket check. "

Laura insisted for eating something at some point and we found a place at the Cresceria close to the Piazza Bosone where we ate a delicious veggie crescia. Laura wanted also to try the  brustengo a local dish made with white flour, some water and a pinch of salt. You mix all adding it in boiled oil. Once fried, people add salt or sugar on the top of the brustengo enjoying it.

I said her I eat it for dinner and it didn't sound the case because crescia is a robust meal.

Then, immediately after lunch Laura asked me if I could accompany them at the Gola dell'Iridio. It seems that once we also destroyed dinosaurus. Gubbio's got some reputation.

Iridium. Personally living in Gubbio per various years during my teenage age I didn't like that substance. It is known that iridium causes depressions. It's a chemical substance consistently known in the Universe but not in our Planet. We are exclusivist of this stardust.

Laura said me that she is studying bioloogy in the same university where Alvarez works. I felt the sensation of being very little, and plenty of real ignorance. I live here but I remained behind, I told her. Laura didn't dramatize a lot: "New discoveries have been recently added." And naturally, I lost them. Oh well: The competence of Laura was great and she explained us a lot. "When iridium fell on Earth, just a litle quantity, created a sort of film,membrane and nothing, nothing could be found there; not a shell, not the skekleton of a dinosaurus, nothing. There wasn't life anymore." It was as if Earth was in a moment of meditation.

We partially made the walk of the Iridium and Laura and her wife were surprised that there were people enjoying a pic-nic. "San Francisco is warmer. Our good season is shorter and the reason for a walk in this area means also staying outside, before of the arrival of bad weather."

It didn't sound good ending the hours spent together without a visit at the Basilica of Sant'Ubaldo. Laura and her wife not only enjoyed  the church but later I also let them show the panorama seen from the bar where I love to spend some time sometimes all alone. "Looking down from this point you breath peace and it seems that all the problems of this world are over." Laura agreed that the panorama  was beautiful and so we stayed there drinking an iced tea, before to return to the city, where I left the ladies in the car park close to the Roman Theater. "You can't miss the chance to visit that site as well" I suggested them.

When I left them, with the promise of keeping alive our contacts, I thought at this connection established by an enthusiastic young reporter 15 years ago. Laura said me  before to leave "I knew that I would have found someone in this city so I decided to afford here." 

Thanks Laura.

Plus, let's remember that the inspiration of the Gubbio Project is our city. A great honor.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Gray Mountain by John Grisham

Days ago I re-discovered in a pile of books an intriguing book by

John Grisham, Gray Mountain. I read the Italian version translated well.

I recently experienced problems. My internet connection is not working anymore from February, and I asked for some help at an association of consumers where attorneys don't ask at all for money for their legal assistance. 

If in Italy this one is a story involving rich and poor, in the USA these associations give coverage and legal assistance to the latest ones, the poorest people of the USA, the ones who could not ask for the help of a private attorney. The story of Gray Mountain is amazingly beauty and terrible.

I start to tell you that I was intrigued by the topic also because in a past existence I realized various interviews with people who worked in mines in a foreign country and they, in the while, fell sick because of their heavy work. 

This book was like a magnet to me. 

The story: 2008. Samatha works in New York. She earns  180.000 dollar per year plus bonuses, but unfortunately,  Lehman and Brothers's fall meant to her and her category, being fired without too many compliments. 

Substantially the company where she was working with, asked her, keeping alive her health insurance, a year somewhere else, working in the field of free legal assistance, for...free. 

Her dad, Marshall, I can't help myself but I like this character so badly, is happy because her daughter is now becoming a real attorney, so she will  experience what life means entering in contact with reality and real people and not just abstractions. 

Samantha doesn't know anything of real trials, real people, and need of real people, first of all. Her friends are rich, beauty, stunningly lucky, their places are rich, their bars trendy, their clothes elegant and rich. Samantha was born in a rich family, she studied in an exclusive university. She doesn't know that some people live pretty differently.  

Her world was wonderful. Apparently. 

She is accepted in West Virginia, where she starts to work assisting people in need but what Brady, the town where she affords in will mean to her is the discovery of  strip mining, the world connected with mines.

A shocking reportage and the fight of common people, risking personally a lot for trying to obtain justice against these big companies.

I found interesting the American legal system. 

I have friends and contacts in Pikeville, a little Kentuckian's town mentioned in this book. It was a pleasant surprise. Hi to everyone!

Read it, I know you will fall in love for it immediately.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Art-Paris Impressionists and Post-Impressionists The Ultimate Guide to Artists, Paintings and Places in Paris and Normandy

Art-Paris Impressionists and Post-Impressionists

The Ultimate Guide to Artists, Paintings and Places in Paris and Normandy by Museyon Books is a wonderful book, written by various contributors with love.

Impressionism: "Led by a core group of artists. Friends and colleagues, they developed their theories over cheap wine in Parisian cafés and in trips to the countryside."

The book starts with the meeting in Paris at the Café Guerbois, center of the artistic life and the so-called Impressionism in 1870. It was a thursday evening and some artists, were smoking and drinking strong coffee. They were Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro and many more. They were worried because, again, their paintings rejected by the Salon, the most important art exhibit in Paris. Born in 1667, this institution appeared pretty snob and exclusive and tried all its best for stopping the success of these artists. 

Rejected from the annual exhibition in Paris these artists that evening tried to find a way for organizing an art exhibit, for let show to everyone their wonderful paintings and what they were doing; their philosophy of thinking regarding painting. A new movement was in fact born; these artists refused to staying closed in an apartment for painting per hours. They preferred to go outside, their favorite topic was nature mixed with the hard work of farmers, in the case of Van Gogh, or sophisticated meetings, as Renoir portrayed of parisienne's citizens. The first exhibition in 1874 in strong protest with the Salon, these artists wanted to remark the birth of a new art, the contemporary one. The art exhibit opened two weeks before the one of the Salon.

Not only: you will also discover what happened in the while at the Salon, and the creation of a museum dedicated to the Impressionists thanks to wise men in grade of looking forward.

Divided in sections, the first chapter will define the word Impressionism for then analyzing the biggest Impressionists with a good biography of each of them, their most most important works and salient, prominent facts of their existences. Another chapter will describe how the Impressionists broke from the Salon for then guiding the reader at the discovery of the various Museums where you can find Impressionists' works without forgetting a chapter about Paris Walking Tours, ending with North of Paris and Normandy.

Highly recommended to all that people in love for Impressionism because it's a fresh reading and a great touristic guide!!!

I thank Museyon Books for the copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori

Ursula K. Le Guin The Last Interview and Other Conversations edited and with an introduction by David Streitfeld

Ursula K. Le Guin The Last Interview 

and Other Conversations edited and with an introduction by  David Streitfeld remarks works, books, passions of this beloved science-fiction writer.

Le Guin in her life wrote  novels, novellas, short stories, poetry, essays, but she was also a translators, a critic; she worked in the field of children's books and young adults. She was a friendly person, and a political activist. She wrote her first story at 9 years. A story about the meeting of a man with elves. 

These interviews will touch every possible aspect of a writer's life.

Creative writing, inspirations, Lewis,Tolkien, their fantastic and magical world no one can forget, writer's blocks, unexistent in Le Guin's case, her writings, and the meaning of it "Science fiction allows a fiction writer to make up cultures, to invent—not only a new world, but a new culture" including family, passions. Once a journalist asked her if she would have been interested in writing a memoir but Le Guin replied: "Memoir? No. I’m like my father: I’m not interested in talking about who I was. I’m much more interested in finding out who I am."

In a speech Le Guin remarked her role in the society, launching an important message: "  For thirty years I’ve been saying, we are making the world uninhabitable, for God’s sake. For forty years! That, as of old, was the writer’s job, maybe his primary job. To show us the futures we didn’t want, and the futures we could have if we wanted...We can change our lives."

Highly recommended to everyone.

Anna Maria Polidori 

Aggregating The News Second Hand Knowledge and the Erosion of Journalistic Authority by Mark Coddington

Aggregating The News Second Hand Knowledge and the Erosion of Journalistic Authority by Mark Coddington

is a new book published by Columbia University Press.

During these latest decades, (aggregation of news started in the remote past, when reporters of magazines and newsmagazines searched in the news some inspirations for new stories or for reporting facts published in other realities), became a viral system of "new information" or better "new disinformation" in the internet age, where social medias, youtube, and many more channels inspired always more journalists, to re-elaborate stories posted by someone else.

But...Which is the role of a reporter? A reporter is called in this way because he/she should inform people thanks to informations that he/she has in first hand, sources, interviews, documents. 

In this way he will report reality. 

In opposite case, the so-called "second hand knowledge" will put the reporter in a condition of inferiority and facts won't be anymore originals, but strongly altered.

It is absolutely true that real journalism costs a lot, but it pays see at the voice Boston Globe and Spotlight. When an information is not complete, sources not verified at all, pieces integrated thanks to the internet, readers will be disorientated. Personally, I am.

Aggregation is also used by big realities, where there are special departments and journalists working on this field. You musn't imagine that this reality is just wanted by little magazines or newsmagazines for the creation of a poor, cheap information at a good price. No: considering that it is a power it is wanted also by big realities. 

The utilization of the net invests everyone and information can't avoid anymore social medias, including the biggest realities of the sector.

The President of the USA loves to tweet directly with politicians for example and many public characters use the net for spreading what they think, where they are, their joyous or sad moments. 

For a serious journalist, this one, a moment of big changes and fears, populism, vaccines, climate changes, means a harder work for reporting the truth because accuracy is indispensible. More than in the past.

Journalists have their own certainties. "There are things they feel they know happened and things they feel they have enough evidence to show happened," writes Coddington.

A fake news, created and launched in the internet, as you will read, creates a lot of damage, embarassment and confusion because if involves important people becomes viral and will later be re-posted, re-launched many times. 

It won't be impossible to stop it and what it is false will become true and what it is true will become false.

Aggregators are never sure of the source, and if a video, a piece is realistically true.

A journalist writes in a daily base and he/she is at direct contact with reality. 

"Professionalism, means controlling knowledge and converting it into authority" writes Mark Coddington.

Although aggregators and journalists report a news in both cases, there is a big difference. 

Written with clarity and passion, this book is highly recommended to everyone in the media, but also at that generic reader interested to discover what it is going on in the world of journalists, understanding why there is all this misinformation.

I thank Columbia University Press for the physical copy of this book.

Anna Maria Polidori