Excellent Cadavers

My life is mapped out: it is my destiny to take a bullet by the Mafia some day. The only thing I don't know is when.

—Giovanni Falcone

The reason Falcone knew the Mafia would kill him one day is that he spent most of his life trying to break their violent stranglehold on his native Sicily. He and his closest friend, Paolo Borsellino, both came from a neighborhood in Palermo where some little boys grew up to be Mafiosi. They grew up to be Judice, prosecuting magistrates. Falcone led the most successful prosecution of Mafia criminals in Italian history, the Maxi Trial of 1986-87, which lead to the conviction of 360 thugs.

After several failed attempts to take his life, the Mafia finally did their worst: on May 23, 1992, they planted a half-ton bomb under the highway between the Palermo airport and the city center and detonated it as Falcone’s car passed, killing him, his wife Francesca Morvillo, and three body guards.

Less than two months later, another car bomb assassinated Borsellino along with five policemen.
Afterwards, posters appeared all over Sicily, that read, “You did not kill them: their ideas walk on our legs.” The Sicilian people have kept that promise. Twenty years later, memorial photos of Falcone and Borsellino still adorn every public bus in Palermo. The Facebook page for Sostenitori Delle Forze Dell'ordine, an organization devoted to efforts against organized crime, regularly displays their photos and their words.

The story of these heroes is the subject of the best true-crime book I’ve ever read, “Excellent Cadavers,” by Alexander Stille. It was made into an HBO movie starring Chazz Palminteri.

I was reminded of all this on Monday by my friend Leighton Gage’s blog about a crusading judge in Brazil, Patrícia Lourival Acioli, who was murdered last week by the death squads (made up of policemen!) that she had so bravely prosecuted. I hope she will be remembered and her ideas carried on, as Falcone and Borsellino’s have been. You can read her story at Murder is Everywhere.

The Mafia is a human phenomenon and thus, like all human phenomena, it has had a beginning and an evolution, and will also have an end. — Giovanni Falcone


Annamaria Alfieri

Can One Word Make a Difference?

A few weeks ago our children gave us tickets to Wolf Trap, an outdoor theater in Virginia. The program was a showing of “Casablanca” on an enormous screen with the Washington Symphony Orchestra playing the score (with the exception of “As Time Goes By, which Sam plays as usual.) A fantastic experience! The place was packed with people of all ages, who had one thing in common — a love for this movie. It was encouraging to see so many young people clapping after those classic lines, such as, “I’m shocked, shocked to find gambling here!” and, “We’ll always have Paris,” and everyone weeping during the Marseillaise. One old gentleman had to be helped to his feet, when the audience rose with one accord to sing.

The master of ceremonies gave some background on the making of the film. Among other things, he said that the script called for Bogart to say, “Here’s luck to you kid!” But the irrepressible actor adlibbed with, “Here’s lookin’ at you kid!” and the line became immortal.

Writers, take heed, one word can make a difference.

Robin Hathaway

Troy, NY: Home to The Travelling BBQ Championships

You can’t help but gape as you wander the streets of the city of Troy, once among the wealthiest of American cities, known as the Collar City when the Arrow Shirt Company detachable-collars-and-cuffs factories and the Iron Works were going full blast in the first decades of the last Century on the banks of the Hudson River. The ancient red brick commercial buildings now empty, but the stately Victorian townhouses fully occupied. Cock an ear, I swear you can hear the ghostly sighs of the children and immigrant women at their machines in the mills and the grunts of the Irish laborers on the docks. But that aside, Troy is a grand old city that has adapted.

On a Saturday in July, I left my adopted city, Albany, to motor seven miles north along the Hudson to the two-day Annual Troy Pig-Out in Riverside Park – succulent barbequed ribs, pulled pork, beef brisket, and blues and rock bands having replaced shirt cuffs, collars, horseshoes and iron cannon as the City’s new export. The Troy Pig Out is officially sanctioned by the Kansas City BBQ Association, who supplied a team of 38 KC BBQ Society licensed judges to select the Grand Champion from among 30 competing chefs from all over New York, from New England, Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

I ate very well this time but not as memorably well as last year. The year before, I saw a giant pig on a spit (Remember, being from NYC, all pigs look like giants to me) from which you’d get to eat a slice. Alas, no pig on a spit this year. When, on the next afternoon, the judges selected the Grand Champion and awarded him ‘Victor’, a life-sized golden pig, I was absent so I don’t know who won. Guess I just prefer real pig.

Robert Knightly

Recalled to Life

The recent summer weather, although typical for the Delaware Valley, was a fat sweaty giant with its foot on my head. To work under those circumstances was but a distant dream. This morning I woke at six to a new day that was cool and not excessively humid. I'm starting to feel like my old self again. Maybe better.

Got up, had some coffee and grits, booted the computer. Faced the day. Faced the next couple of months. Felt a stirring under my ribs that could even be called energy. Great heavens! Next Tuesday my new book comes out! The Brink of Fame by Irene Fleming.

Must buy two glass sangria pitchers for the upcoming launch party, 7 - 9 PM at the Lambertville Free Public Library. (You're invited, by the way.) What else shall I do for this book? I've done so little, scheduled no signings, prepared no readings. It was hot. My neck hurt. Last winter I made a trailer:

I was supposed to email it to everybody I knew and ask them to pass it on. But that's so pushy. Today I opened my email to find a newsletter from Jennifer Fusco called Market or Die, and another from Diana Pemberton-Sikes of The Clothing Chronicles on improving my life through wardrobe choices, a gospel I have always believed in. Ms. Fusco wants me to have a QR code. I made one of those some time ago, too, although I have no clue what to do with it. Here it is:

Point your smartphone at it, if any, to see my web site, www.kategallison.com.

The sad fact is I'm no good at marketing. I guess I'll have to die. Or not; as I was saying, I'm feeling quite energetic this morning. At any moment I may jump up and do something other than writing on my WIP, where I'm trying to advance librarian protagonist Mallory Fry's love affair with the charming janitor while saving her from the designs of a small town serial killer. I may, I don't know, clean my closet, sort my makeup, or phone a bookstore and see whether they would like me to stop in and sign.

Must think about self-presentation.

Someone might even be watching.

Kate Gallison

The Most Elegant American

I was driving and listening to music this past week, when it occurred to me that Duke Ellington has to have been the most elegant American ever to live.

Other candidates for the title might be Gary Cooper or Katherine Hepburn, who certainly had the bone structure and the clothes.

A strong argument might be made for Cole Porter, who could manage to write a song like “Let’s Do It,” and still remain high tone!

But no one but the Duke was so unerringly elegant in his art. Listen and watch.

Can you beat that?

Annamaria Alfieri