L'Italo-Americano

22 L'Italo-Americano www.italoamericano.com Dear Readers, January jottings from my "A" file with an Italian connection: Avanti Awards, the Dinner and Artist Showcase and yearly fundraising event of the Joseph and Frances Brucia Foundation will take place on January 24, 2014, at 5:30pm at the Mill Valley Community Center Cascade Room, located at 180 Camino Alto St. in Mill Valley, Calif. 94941, tel. (415) 456-8611. This night of celebration and seventh annual Artist showcase will feature performances by previous Avanti Awardees, who with the financial support of their Awards, were able to pursue dreams and artistic goals in dance, violin and piano performance. The goals of The Joseph and Frances Brucia Foundation continue to move "Avanti" thanks to the efforts of their children who wish to honor the works begun by their late parents Joseph and Frances Brucia. The Brucia family has a long history of supporting the arts for back in 1922, it was Giuseppe Brucia Sr., along with a dozen Italian opera lovers, mostly Sicilian-American crab-fishermen living in early San Francisco, who financed the first Grand Opera in San Francisco, as per dreams spun by a piano teacher from Napoli, Gaetano Merola. *** Amman (Jordan), there in an Italian Hospital in the Jordanian capital, is where those "beaten and left half dead" on the highways and by ways of the region are tended and cared for. The Italian Hospital is where the Dominican Sisters of the Adoration, together with their doctors and helpers, nurse the sick and suffering refugees, who are now mostly from Syria. The Italian Hospital is the oldest medical center in Jordan, existing since 1926. Located in the old city of Amman, the Italian Hospital also cares for the poor and destitute, often free of charge. They treat about 47,000 patients there each year, but the growing number of refugees is overwhelming the capacities of the hospital, so the loving charity of the Sisters and doctors is coming up against unwished for limitations. Prior to the influx of Syrian refugees at the Italian Hospital, many of the refugees living and being treated at the Italian Hospital in Amman were refugees from the Iraq war. "Offerte" and other donations for medicines and other necessities are always welcome. For more info: 1 (800) 628-6333. *** Anno del Cavallo (Year of the Horse) is what our Asian American neighbors adjacent to our shrinking "Little Italys" will be celebrating when Chinese New Year begins on January 30, 2014. So, "Cari Lettori", practice your "Gong Xi Fa Cai" (wishes of prosperity in the New Year) and be a good neighbor. *** In Chinese folklore, an emperor in China invited all the animals in his domain to share in the New Year's celebration. Of all the animals in the kingdom, only twelve came and they came in this order: the rat, the ox, the tiger, the hare, the dragon, the serpent, the horse, the goat, the monkey the rooster, the dog, and the last to show up was the boar. For those who came to pay him homage, the emperor named a year as a mark of honor for them. Persons born under a particular sign are believed to possess certain characteristics peculiar to the year of that animal. Many people who believe in the signs thought it was important enough to influence major decisions during the course of their lives. *** YEAR OF THE HORSE HORSE year people are generally very popular due to their cheerful disposition and gregarious nature. They have financially sound minds and handle money matters well. They are wise and talented and quick in all they do. They enjoy theatrical entertainment and large crowds. They are independent individuals who despise advice. Persons born in 1930, 1942, 1954, 1966, 1978, 1990, 2002 and 2014 were born in the year of the HORSE. *** Archimedes (287-212 BC) was not only a mathematician, he also designed weapons and munitions. Archimedes, the son of the astronomer Pheidias, was born at Syracuse, Sicily and is said to have been related to Hieron II, tyrant (or king) of Syracuse. At any rate he was on intimate terms with Hieron and his son Gelon. He left his meals untouched when he was deep in his mathematics. On making his famous discovery that a floating body loses in weight an equal amount to that of the liquid displaced, he leaped from the bath in which he had made the discovery by observing his own floating body, and dashed through the streets of Syracuse stark naked, shouting "Eureka, eureka!", I have found it, I have found it! What he had found was the first law of hydrostatics. According to the story, a dishonest goldsmith had adulterated the gold of a crown for Hieron with silver and suspecting fraud, had asked Archimedes to put his mind on the problem. It is not definitely known whether the goldsmith was guilty; for the sake of the story, it is usually assumed that he was. All the action and tragedy of his life were crowded into its end. In 212 BC, the Second Punic War was roaring full blast. Rome and Carthage were going at one another and Syracuse, the city of Archimedes, lay temptingly near the path of the Roman fleet. Why not lay siege to it? The Roman leader, Marcellus, anticipated a speedy conquest. The pride of his confident heart was a primitive piece of artillery on a lofty harp-shaped platform supported by eight galleys lashed together. Beholding all this descending upon them, the timid citizens would have handed Marcellus the keys of the city. Not so Hieron. He too was prepared for war. It seemed that Archimedes had yielded in peace time to the importunities of Hieron, and had demonstrated to the tyrant's satisfaction that mathematics can, on occasion, become devastatingly practical. To convince his friend that mathematics is capable of more than abstract deductions, Archimedes had applied his laws of levers and pulleys to the manipulation of a fully loaded ship, which he himself launched single-handed. Remembering this feat when the war clouds began to gather ominously near, Hieron begged Archimedes to prepare a suitable welcome for Marcellus. Archimedes constituted himself a reception committee of one to trip the precipitated Romans. The harp-shaped turtle affair on the eight quinqeremes lasted no longer than the fame of the conceited Marcellus. A succession of stone shots, each weighing over a quarter of a ton, hurled from the super catapults of Archimedes, demolished the unwieldy contraption. Crane-like beaks and iron claws reached over the walls for the approaching ships, seized them, spun them around, and sank or shattered them against the jutting cliffs. The land forces, mowed down by the Archimedean artillery, fared no better. Marcellus backed off to confer with his staff. At last evincing some slight signs of military common sense, Marcellus abandoned all thoughts of a frontal attack, captured Megara in the rear, and finally sneaked up on Syracuse from behind. This THURSDAY, JANUARY 16, 2014 time his luck was with him. The foolish Syracusans were in the middle of a celebration in honor of Artemis. The celebrating Syracusans woke up to find the massacre in full swing. Archimedes' first intimation that the city had been taken by theft was the shadow of a Roman soldier falling across his diagram in the dust. According to one account, the soldier had stepped on the diagram, angering Archimedes to exclaim sharply, "Don't disturb my circles!". The soldier flew into a passion, unsheathed his glorious sword, and dispatched the unarmed veteran geometer, of seventy five. Thus died Archimedes absorbed in the contemplation of a mathematical diagram. *** Actress Sofia Loren, became a widow, on January 9, 2007. when her husband Carlo Ponti, one of Italy's best film producers, died at a hospital in Geneva, Switzerland, of pulmonary complications at age 94. Ponti produced more than 150 films, including "La Strada" in 1954, "Dr. Zhivago" in 1965, and "Blowup" in 1966. In the end, however, he was best known as the husband of Sofia Loren, whom he first met in 1950, when she was a 15-year-old beauty contestant from Naples. At the time he was married to Giuliana Fiastri, a marriage that eventually ended in 1957, but not without creating a furor. Italy had no divorce laws at that time, and the Vatican refused to grant him an annulment. When Ponti for money and women that attracted him to the film business. He set up a company in Milan and joined forces with Lux Film. In 1940, as World War II was raging across Europe, the company produced "Piccolo Mondo Antico" (Small Old-Fashioned World), adapted from Antonio Fogazzaro's late 19th century romantic novel. The movie, directed by Mario Soldati with Alida Valli in the lead role, became a great success, and Ponti moved south to Rome to produce for Lux. He was soon joined by Dino De Laurentis and together they made a number of successful postwar films, including Giuseppe De Santis' "Bitter Rice" (Riso Amaro), an earthy drama of human passions among women rice workers in the Po Valley. In 1950 De Laurentis and Ponti left Lux and formed their own company. They produced, among other notable films, Rossellini's "Europa '51", a drama with Ingrid Bergman, and Fellini's "La Strada", starring Anthony Quinn and Giulietta Masina. The two producers parted ways in 1955, when Ponti's main concern became boosting the career of Loren. Ponti produced most of the films that Loren made for Hollywood between 1956 and the early sixties. In 1960, for her performance in "Two Women", Sofia won a Best Actress Oscar, the first given to a non-American actress in a foreign language film. Loren played a young widow in 1943 Italy who flees the allied bombing in Rome to Carlo Ponti with Sophia Loren married Loren in Mexico in 1957, the Italian authorities charged him with bigamy. In 1960, the couple returned to Italy but were summoned to court and denied being married. In 1965, Ponti, Fiastri, and Loren all became French citizens in Paris where officials settled the marital issues and untangled the legal and financial issues. Ponti then legally married Loren in 1966 and in 1968, he was acquitted of the bigamy charges. The couple eventually had two sons, Symphony conductor Carlo Jr. and Film director Edoardo. Carlo Ponti was born in Magenta, Italy, and studied law at the University of Milan. After graduation, he briefly practiced law. It may have been his love return to her native village. Later Ponti teamed up with Vittorio De Sica and they produced two popular movies, "Marriage Italian Style" (1964) and "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow" (1965). Under an agreement with MGM, Ponti produced three movies in English by Michelangelo Antonioni: "Blow Up" (1966), "The Passenger" (1975), and "Zabriskie's Point" (1970). In 1977, the popular Italian movie, "Una Giornata Particolare" starring Loren and Marcello Mastroianni won the Golden Globe award for best foreign film. In later years the Pontis jetted between their homes in California, Geneva, and Paris. ***

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