Love In The Villa (2022)

The more the politics in my country deteriorates, so goes the movies that I watch. I become less interested in something that teaches me something and more interested in well worn tropes that can be found in Made For Cable movies, something that will never make it to the big screen. Hence we have this--a romantic comedy set in Verona, a city that Shakespeare reportedly never visited, but none the less made famous by setting his tragic play Romeo and Juliet there. The good news is that the bulk of the filming actually occurred in Verona so if you are like me, have it on your hope to see life list, then you will get a glimpse and see if it is for you. Julie is a grammar school teacher who is in love with Romeo and Juliet--she still sees it as a tragic love story rather than one of parents screwing up their kids lives. This is a dream trip for her up to the point where her long time boyfriend dumped her, and she decided to go anyway. Charlie is there for a wine expo and is hoping to score a great deal on a little known wine that has great potential--which seems possible in Italy. They are double booked in to the same Airbnb and because of the wine expo, there is not a room to be had in Verona. The first half of the movie is pretty unbearable as they try to get the other to vacate the premises, but once they declare a truce, it is and enjoyable ride the rest of the way. And the scenery!!

The Director by Daniel Kehlmann

This is a creepy bit of historical fiction. I had the same anxiousness reading it that I had when watching the 2024 movie Zone of Interest, which depicts seemingly innocuous family life--but right next to a concentration camp. A review noted that the book has all the darkness, shapeshifting ambiguity and glittering unease of a modern Grimms' fairytale. Couldn't agree more. The true life character who is fictionally depicted here is Georg Wilhelm Pabst. He was one of the most influential film directors in Weimar Germany, probably best known on the international stage for discovering Greta Garbo and Louise Brooks. His radical approach earned him the nickname of “Red Pabst”, and when Hitler was elected to power in 1933, Pabst reacted by taking his family to the United States--where he struggled to be at home. He intended to emigrate permanently, but what was supposed to have been a brief trip back to Austria to visit his sick mother saw Pabst detained inside the Third Reich for the duration of the second world war. He was conscripted as a film maker. Pabst himself seeks refuge in work, taking on subjects that are “German enough” not to offend the censor. The films he creates offer their own coded criticisms of the regime, though his resistance is too clever, too artistic to be easily discerned. The novel’s denouement takes us finally to the film set of his last film, relocated to Prague in order to escape the allied bombing. Pabst is determined to finish the film by whatever means necessary, even as more and more of his support staff are forcibly drafted and sent to the front. The really difficult part is that, much like in America in 2025, the people who are the most racist, the most vile, and the least needed are the ones who have the upper hand and they openly grind down those they hate in the most despicable ways.

Everest on Grand, St. Paul, Minnesota

This is a special place, where the food of the Himalayan region is featured. The owners came to Minnesota for educational reasons. Padam Sharma came to Minnesota in 1977 with his wife, Kamala, and their two children—son, Sam, and daughter, Pankaj—to pursue a master’s degree in Soil Science. They returned to Minnesota so that Padam could earn his Ph.D., after which he took a research position at North Dakota State University. They eventually returned to Minnesota, where Padam worked first as a researcher at the university, then as a consultant in a computer business. The restaurant grew out of a desire to bridge the gap between Americans and Nepalese through food. The family nature of the business has been its greatest strength, especially because Kamala, Pankaj, and Pankaj’s husband, Ujjwal, are all peak-level cooks of Nepalese cuisine. When you walk in, you can tell you are about to eat well--we started with Yak momos, because while I had yak years ago, it had been a while. We ordered our food medium, a 3 on a scale of 1-5 and there was definite heat to it, not to much, but more than enough to know they were not going lightly on us. I would recommend this as having a menu that is broader than many other restaurants of similar cuisine. I brought the leftovers home, and after sharing with my family we decided to get a Nepali cookbook and try our hand at it.

Group by Christie Tate

I read this as part of a Goodreads challenge and while I did not love it and I might have found it otherwise, because I am slowly but surely reading my way through the Reese Witherspoon book picks and this is one of those as well, it might have taken some time. This is a memoir that the author wrote about her experience with group therapy and how it changes--and saved--her life. She was academically successful but socially constricted and when she went to therapy to address the unhappiness in her life, she was referred to group therapy. The group she joined was one where there was no expectation of confidentiality and every expectation that you would share all aspects of your life with the group. It was a bit shocking for me as a mental health professional, but everyone goes in knowing what's what. There are few of the boundaries you would ordinarily expect--group members can date each other, get married--the therapist even goes to these weddings and he even has the patient over to his house at one point. The boundaries are very permeable. The book takes place over about a five year period of time, and while it includes very little about her professional life, it is quite intimate in the details of her personal life, most particularly her intimate partners. This does have a happy ending, but she has to kiss a few frogs to find her prince. It is a quirky memoir that I liked more once I finished it than I did reading it.

Manzone Giovanni 1925, Monforte d'Alba, Italy

We had an exceptionally good time tasting wine at this family run winery. The great granddaughter of the founder gave us the tour. • The estate focuses on high-altitude, steep hillside vineyards, including renowned Crus such as Gramolere and Castelletto, producing elegant and age-worthy Barolo. • Manzone follows a sustainable approach with organic practices, low yields, spontaneous fermentations, and extended aging in large Slavonian oak casks.

Stefano Manzone, born in 1860, founded the current winery. His son Giovanni, born in 1886, won the Ciabot del Preve, which was the former parish priest's house and farm located in Castelletto. This area was particularly challenging to cultivate due to its distance from the main property and its difficult terrain. Giovanni and his wife Maria relocated there, driven solely by the will to survive the difficult years ahead. This moment marked the beginning of the winery's history. Giovanni was a visionary who had previously worked as a cellarman in one of the area's most innovative wineries, the Cantina Sociale di Monforte d'Alba, established in the early 19th century by Monsignor Dall'Orto. However, following the Great War, this winery closed due to the spread of phylloxera. In 1925, Giovanni moved to Castelletto's Ciabot del Preve and began producing wine, leveraging his prior experience. During this time, the post-war Langhe region experienced a significant decline in population as many abandoned rural life for urban opportunities. Giovanni Manzone was among the few who chose to remain in this rural setting. Driven by innovation, he purchased the first Lamborghini crawler tractor—an essential tool for working the steep slopes of Castelletto. This acquisition was so significant that it attracted interest from other local farmers who sought to rent it. The property continued to expand over time. In the early 1970s, the Manzone family acquired additional plots known as Gramolere, which translates to "weed and stones" in Piedmontese dialect. These lands were historically recognized for producing exceptional grapes and wines with remarkable structure and longevity.

The Siren's Call by Chris Hayes

I read this because it was on Obama's Summer 2025 reading list--it was number 8 out of 10, and I did not love this. It is an analysis of a current challenge, which is that we collectively are drowning in an ocean of content designed to capture fragments of our consciousness, and we barely notice the tide pulling us under. It is an in depth look at why we are addicted to our phones. This does not quite resonate with me personally, even though I see it all around me, people who are in the midst of a group, but they are ignoring what is going on around them and are solely concentrated on their phones--the distracting content. It is dangerous, I see that--but again, I see it, and I am looking for something more solution focused. This book is more focused on why it happens. He does make an opening pitch that this is as old as man, that Odysseus was captured by a siren for a decade on his route home, and that we are following in his footsteps.

Quilted Postcards with Sarah Ruiz

Sarah Ruiz is a NASA space engineer by day, quilter by night. She spoke to our guild about her 100 postcards in 100 days project that she did during COVID. First she started with her idea about doing something over and over again for a 100 days as a way to get better at something. You do it every day--which is in itself a commitment. I do it with language acquisition (which I have been doing more or less for seven years), and it definitely has improved my ability to communicate in a couple languages that are not my first language. So I was intrigued by this idea when it comes to crafting skills. I had an inherent avoidance of FPP, even though when I have done it I have been impressed with the precision achieved with it and how compatatively low skilled it need be. So it is basically in my head and I need to do more of it if I am going to get over it. So maybe in 2026 I will figure out a 100 day project for myself. So she had this whole 100 days thing going on when the pandemic kept us all more or less at home (as a health care worker I left the house, but it was home or work, no exceptions, with contactless grocery pick ups and dinners outside at seperate tables per household). She decided she would do a pieced postcard every day and mail it to someone. One of my guild mates was lucky enough to receive one--but it was a way to distract herself, work within a small palate, and to brighten someone else's world. Also on the plus side, they are something you could crank out in an hour--and she has some free patterns on her website to get you started. Check it out!

The Names by Florence Knapp

I very much liked this, but it has a grim underlying message, which is if you are involved with an abuser, get out before it is too late. There are no good exit strategies that develop over time. This is what one reviewer described as a sliding door tale, where three different narratives unfold depending on the choice made in the beginning. Cora is married to Gordon, a respected physician in the community and a man who beats his wife at home. He comes from a long line of Gordons and when Cora sets off to register her son's birth, she is expected to continue that tradition. She doesn't want to, though. She considers naming him Bear, which is what her 9-year old daughter Maia wants, Jordan, which is what she wants, and Gordon, which is what is expected of her. The book unfolds with what happens when she makes each different choice, and no matter what, it doesn't go well--but it goes very differently for the boy depending.

Enoteca Regionale Del Barbaresco, Barbaresco, Italy

Inaugurated on July 5, 1986, the Enoteca Regionale del Barbaresco works for the promotion of Barbaresco DOCG, representing the entire denomination and over 150 of the wineries that produce it. There are three Barbarescos open for tasting, and while we were there is was largely an Italian clientele, buying large bottles of wine, Magnums and larger. The building is spectacular! The Enoteca del Barbaresco was born from an initiative of the Piedmont Region which in 1980 determined the establishment of the circuit of Enoteche Regionali to combine the valorisation of wine culture with the recovery of historical structures, which have become the headquarters of the various wine shops. The need to create a regional institution for the promotion of Barbaresco faced the problem of the lack of adequate space: both the castle of Neive and the fiefdom of Barbaresco were not municipal property and there were no suitable structures in Treiso. The Municipality of Barbaresco then decided to purchase from the Curia the building of the former Confraternity of San Donato, now disused, thus allowing the opening of the wine shop in 1986.

On Death by John Keats (1814)

A country should not set it's military on its people, and certainly not for revenge or vanity. But sadly and very unfortunately, that is where we are right now. On Death 1. Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream, And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by? The transient pleasures as a vision seem, And yet we think the greatest pain's to die. 2. How strange it is that man on earth should roam, And lead a life of woe, but not forsake His rugged path; nor dare he view alone His future doom which is but to awake.