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Theresa Maggio

Sicily
and Vermont

Open-air sirocco room

March 10, 2015
Tags: scirocco room, camera dello scirocco, villa savagnone, altarello di baida, Palermo, sicily, sicilia, refresh
An old photo of the sirocco room before it was filled with refuse. It is now clean and pristine again, thanks to the scouts of Sicily.
This is an outdoor sirocco room where eighteenth -century grandees would go to cool off in the summer when the hot, humid wind blew up from the Sahara. The source of the cooling, flowing water is a qanat. It is located withing the Palermo city limits, in a southern, somewhat rural, quarter called Altarello  Read More 
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Plight of the Immigrants

March 8, 2015
Tags: refugees, sicily, boat people, Italy, mediterranean, crossing, immigration, clandestine, voyage, treacherous
Italian authorities intercept clandestine migrants on the Mediterranean, and rescue them. Photo by Massimo Sestini from The Guardian.
By June of 2014, 59,880 migrants had landed on Italy's coast, more than arrived in all of 2011, and Sicily got 53,000 of them. All of them were treacherous voyages. Thousands of minors arrived without any family. They paid an average of $1,600 to board a broken-down fishing boat packed with 300 people, and no life vests. Life vests take up room. Read More 
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Ten more victims: immigrants drown at sea. 1,000 survivors expected to arrive tonight

March 4, 2015
Tags: immigration, mediterranean, graveyard, gommone, rubber raft, drown, victims, arrivals, ships, rescue, death, Migration
Surviving boat people will arrive Sicily this evening.
At least ten people drown when the rubber raft they were in bounced and flipped. They were escaping Africa. They are not allowed in Europe, and so they travel clandestinely, as best they can, because ironically they must set foot in Europe in order to claim asylum. They cannot ask for help from the shores of Tripoli.  Read More 
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Roberto Helg, head of Palermo's Chamber of Commerce, arrested for extortion

March 3, 2015
Tags: pizzo, protection money, extortion, Palermo, chamber of commerce, anti-mafia, blowhard, no trust, hard to run a business in palermo
The sign says:" If you trust us, we will help you avoid being a victim." Oh, the irony of it all.
From today's La Repubblica. This man who paid lip service to anti-extortionists and anti-mafia movements was caught red handed pocketing part of the 100,000-EURO fee he charged a pastry-shop owner in order to renew his lease at the Palermo airport. At first he denied the  Read More 
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The Sicily of The Leopard

March 1, 2015
Tags: Leopard, gattopardo, documentary, YouTube, sicily, Lampedusa, literature
A 38-minute black and white documentary in Italian from 1960, about Sicily.
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Quattro canti 1865

February 28, 2015
Tags: quattro canti, Palermo, Four Corners, 1865, clean, center, city
The photographer was standing on CORSO Vittorio Emanuele and shooting south, uphill, toward the Porta Nuova. The cathedral and the Norman Palace are at the upper end of this street.
The Quattro Canti, officially Piazza Vigliena, the four-way intersection at the center of the historic city, in an 1865 photo by Robert Rive. Clean, no traffic, no trash on the ground. No products came prepackaged so there was no packaging to discard. The piazza was named for the Spanish Viceroy Villena who commissioned the showpiece.  Read More 
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LaRosa Works offers tours to Sicily, more

February 27, 2015
Tags: Karen LaRosa, Culture, tours, sicily, passion, energy, villas, bikes, wines, food, olives, travel, New York, events, planning, booster
Photo by K. LaRosa. Near Taormina.
Karen LaRosa is Sicily's biggest booster, and she takes some excellent photos of the island. Share her enthusiasm at her site: http://larosaworks.com/
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Demeter art deco mosaic in the Capo Market years ago

February 26, 2015
Tags: capo, Palermo, mosaico, demetra, panificio, morello, patrimonio, artistico, culturale, cultura, Culture
Panificio Morello mosaic years ago
Here is a shot of the art deco mosaic of Demeter, the goddess of grain, outside a bread bakery in the Capo market of Palermo. The mosaic is still there. The bakery recently closed. People are forming Facebook groups to save the mosaic, have it put in a museum.
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Vermont

February 25, 2015
Tags: Vermont, snow
We've had more than seven feet of snow this winter, and no rain to ruin it.
White world.
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Scala dei Turchi

February 25, 2015
Tags: scala dei turchi, agrigento, sicilia, sicily, White, blue, sea, mediterranean, Beauty, bellezza, mare
Scala dei Turchi, Realmonte, Province of Agrigento
We are deep into winter in Vermont and I am thinking about these blue and white places. Sicily is such a beautiful island. Scala dei Turchi is near the big town of Agrigento but actually in the smaller town of Realmonte, where I stayed for a few days in 2010. The white stone is hard-packed gypsum. Realmonte citizens are the happiest Sicilians I have yet found.  Read More 
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Palazzo Valguanera Gangi

February 24, 2015
Tags: Palazzo valguanera gangi, Palermo, sicily, sicilia, salone
Such excess! So golden!
Just look at it. The aristocrats who danced here probably had their shirts laundered in the Danissini stream (see post below.)
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