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Ancestry reveals Taylor Swift is related to American poet Emily Dickinson: EXCLUSIVE

How’s this for a coincidence?

MARCH 4, 2024, 8:21 AM EST / SOURCE: TODAY

By Drew Weisholtz

It looks like Taylor Swift’s penchant for words is in her blood.

Genealogy company Ancestry has found that the “Cruel Summer” singer, whose upcoming album is titled “The Tortured Poets Department,” is related to legendary American poet Emily Dickinson, TODAY exclusively revealed March 4. They are sixth cousins, three times removed.

“Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th century English immigrant (Swift’s 9th great-grandfather and Dickinson’s 6th great-grandfather who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut),” Ancestry shared with Today.

Emily Dickinson Ives on in her distant cousin, Taylor Swift. Getty Images

“Taylor Swift’s ancestors remained in Connecticut for six generations until her part of the family eventually settled in northwestern Pennsylvania, where they married into the Swift family line.”

Interestingly, Swift herself has publicly referenced the 19th century poet while talking about the different types of lyrics she writes for her songs.

“If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great-grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the Quill genre,” she said in 2022, while receiving the Songwriter-Artist of the Decade Award from the Nashville Songwriters Association International.

Taylor Swift has spoken about the impact Emily Dickinson has had on her.Steve Granitz / FilmMagic

Fans have also speculated that Swift’s ninth studio album, “Evermore,” was inspired by the 19th century poet.

Swift on Dec. 10, 2020, which is Dickinson’s birthday. Dickinson also wrote a poem called “One Sister Have I in Our House,” which features the word “forevermore,” similar to the title of Swift’s album.

A few days before she announced the release of “Evermore,” Swift also discussed the cover of her album “Folklore,” telling Entertainment Weekly, she had an idea for “this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830,” which happens to be the year Dickinson was born. ~~~~~ 

Taylor Swift reveals fourth and ‘final’ exclusive bonus track from her upcoming album

Swift dropped the surprise announcement during a recent concert in Singapore.

Feb. 5, 2024, 6:03 PM PST / Updated Feb. 23, 2024, 5:24 AM PST  / Source:TODAY

Taylor Swift revealed the final bonus track on her upcoming album, “The Tortured Poets Department.”

Swift announced the new track and final variation of her 11th original studio album while performing at National Stadium in Singapore

In a video shared by a fan on X, the “Anti-Hero” singer told fans in the audience that she wanted to show them “something that nobody else has seen before” and directed their attention to the big screen behind her.

The screen included a black and white photo of Swift alongside the announcement of a new bonus track on her forthcoming album.

“So this is the final edition of ‘The Tortured Poets Department,’ it’s the final cover,” she said. “It’s called ‘The Black Dog’ edition. There’s an exclusive song on this edition called ‘The Black Dog,’ I cannot wait for you to hear it. I am so excited that you guys are so supportive and excited about this because I just can’t wait for you to hear it. I just appreciate the enthusiasm.”

Swift announced the new song on her Instagram as well, posting the full album artwork alongside a brief glimpse into some of the lyrics from the tune.

“‘Old habits die screaming…’” the caption read. “File Name: The Black Dog. Pre-order the final new edition of THE TORTURED POETS DEPARTMENT with exclusive bonus track ‘The Black Dog’ on my website now.”

Swift previously announced the album’s other bonus tracks on stage while embarking on her “Eras Tour.”

By Amy Ely

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 https://youtu.be/xMy8ZGlKf1U?si=sbnkXuAjVLnPdnJp

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Why Taylor Swift fans are convinced Emily Dickinson inspired her new album

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Why Taylor Swift fans are convinced Emily Dickinson inspired her new album

4 YEARS AGO

Taylor Swift has just released her ninth album, evermore, and fans are already convinced about this theory.

Another day in the pandemic, another new album drop by Taylor Swift. Yep, the singer just released her second unexpected album of the year. 

Back in July, Swift surprised fans with her eighth record, folklore. It saw the artist step away from pop synths and big beats, returning to a more acoustic, stripped-back sound. As opposed to writing autobiographical lyrics, which Swift is known and loved for, lockdown inspired her to create characters who tell their escapist and nostalgic stories. 

It was a hit with fans and critics alike, and has been nominated for a Grammy. But yesterday (10 December), Swift released a statement saying the stories were not yet over – and she would continue telling them on a sister album, evermore.

“To put it plainly, we just couldn’t stop writing songs,” Swift wrote in a statement on social media. “To try and put it more poetically, it feels like we were standing on the edge of the folklorian woods and had a choice: to turn and go back or to travel further into the forest of this music. We chose to wander deeper in.”

She added: “Ever since I was 13, I’ve been excited about turning 31 because it’s my lucky number backwards, which is why I wanted to surprise you with this now. You’ve all been so caring, supportive and thoughtful on my birthdays and so this time I thought I would give you something! 

“I also know this holiday season will be a lonely one for most of us and if there are any of you out there who turn to music to cope with missing loved ones the way I do, this is for you.”

As you can imagine, any Swiftie worthy of the title given to Swift fans, was quick to share their theories around the new album. And there’s one that a lot of people are talking about…

Is Taylor Swift’s evermore album dedicated to Emily Dickinson?

People on Twitter are convinced that evermore was inspired by and dedicated to American poet and important literary figure Emily Dickinson.

Here’s the evidence being presented to the case:

• Swift made the evermore announcement on 10 December, which is also the birthday of American poet Emily Dickinson.
• Emily Dickinson ended a poem called One Sister Have I in Our House, which was one of her most romantic poems for her lover Sue Gilbert, with the word “forevermore”.
• In a recent Entertainment Weekly interview, Swift talked about an idea for “this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830” (the year that Dickinson was born).
• Swift’s good friend Hailee Steinfeld played Dickinson in AppleTV+’s recent series about the famed writer.
• Dickinson lived in isolation for much of her life.
• And just the general “cottagecore” vibe that Swift’s got going on. 

Upon listening to the album when it was released today (11 December), fans are now saying that the plot has thickened because of the song Ivy.

“If the Emily Dickinson theory pans out, I definitely think Ivy is about her and Sue,” asserted one fan.

“Ivy is about Sue and Emily Dickinson. no further questions at this time,” stated another Swifty.

“OK but really, no one else is seeing Emily and Sue in Ivy? Because I’m literally going insane because of it,” a fan who we’re slightly concerned about tweeted. 

You can listen to Ivy and the rest of the evermore album for yourself now to see if you think this theory is correct.

By Hollie Richardson

Images: Beth Garrabrant

Taylor Swift broke all her rules with Folklore—and gave herself a much-needed escape

The pop star, one of EW’s 2020 Entertainers of the Year, delves deep into her surprise eighth album, Rebekah Harkness, and a Joe Biden presidency.

By 

Alex Suskind

Published on December 8, 2020

“He is my co-writer on ‘Betty’ and ‘Exile,'” replies Taylor Swift with deadpan precision. The question Who is William Bowery? was, at the time we spoke, one of 2020’s great mysteries, right up there with the existence of Joe Exotic and the sudden arrival of murder hornets. An unknown writer credited on the year’s biggest album? It must be an alias.

Is he your brother?

“He’s William Bowery,” says Swift with a smile.

It’s early November, after Election Day but before Swift eventually revealed Bowery’s true identity to the world (the leading theory, that he was boyfriend Joe Alwyn, proved prescient). But, like all Swiftian riddles, it was fun to puzzle over for months, particularly in this hot mess of a year, when brief distractions are as comforting as a well-worn cardigan. Thankfully, the Bowery… erhm, Alwyn-assisted Folklore—a Swift project filled with muted pianos and whisper-quiet snares, recorded in secret with Jack Antonoff and the National’s Aaron Dessner—delivered.

“The only people who knew were the people I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and a small management team,” Swift, 30, tells EW of the album’s hush-hush recording sessions. That gave the intimate Folklore a mystique all its own: the first surprise Taylor Swift album, one that prioritized fantastical tales over personal confessions.

“Early in quarantine, I started watching lots of films,” she explains. “Consuming other people’s storytelling opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, Why have I never created characters and intersecting story lines?” That’s how she ended up with three songs about an imagined love triangle (“Cardigan,” “Betty,” “August”), one about a clandestine romance (“Illicit Affairs”), and another chronicling a doomed relationship (“Exile”). Others tell of sumptuous real-life figures like Rebekah Harkness, a divorcee who married the heir to Standard Oil—and whose home Swift purchased 31 years after her death. The result, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” hones in on Harkness’ story, until Swift cleverly injects herself.

And yet, it wouldn’t be a Swift album without a few barbed postmortems over her own history. Notably, “My Tears Ricochet” and “Mad Woman,” which touch on her former label head Scott Borchetta selling the masters to Swift’s catalog to her known nemesis Scooter Braun. Mere hours after our interview, the lyrics’ real-life origins took a surprising twist, when news broke that Swift’s music had once again been sold, to another private equity firm, for a reported $300 million. Though Swift ignored repeated requests for comment on the transaction, she did tweet a statement, hitting back at Braun while noting that she had begun re-recording her old albums—something she first promised in 2019 as a way of retaining agency over her creative legacy. (Later, she would tease a snippet of that reimagined work, with a new version of her hit 2008 single “Love Story.”)

Like surprise-dropping Folklore, like pissing off the president by endorsing his opponents, like shooing away haters, Swift does what suits her. “I don’t think we often hear about women who did whatever the hell they wanted,” she says of Harkness—something Swift is clearly intent on changing. For her, that means basking in the world of, and favorable response to, Folklore. As she says in our interview, “I have this weird thing where, in order to create the next thing, I attack the previous thing. I don’t love that I do that, but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I still love it.”

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: We’ve spent the year quarantined in our houses, trying to stay healthy and avoiding friends and family. Were you surprised by your ability to create and release a full album in the middle of a pandemic?

TAYLOR SWIFT: I was. I wasn’t expecting to make an album. Early on in quarantine, I started watching lots of films. We would watch a different movie every night. I’m ashamed to say I hadn’t seen Pan’s Labyrinth before. One night I’d watch that, then I’d watch L.A. Confidential, then we’d watch Rear Window, then we’d watch Jane Eyre. I feel like consuming other people’s art and storytelling sort of opened this portal in my imagination and made me feel like, “Well, why have I never done this before? Why have I never created characters and intersecting story lines? And why haven’t I ever sort of freed myself up to do that from a narrative standpoint?” There is something a little heavy about knowing when you put out an album, people are going to take it so literally that everything you say could be clickbait. It was really, really freeing to be able to just be inspired by worlds created by the films you watch or books you’ve read or places you’ve dreamed of or people that you’ve wondered about, not just being inspired by your own experience.

In that vein, what’s it like to sit down and write something like “Betty,” which is told from the perspective of a 17-year-old boy?

That was huge for me. And I think it came from the fact that my co-writer, William Bowery [Joe Alwyn], is male—and he was the one who originally thought of the chorus melody. And hearing him sing it, I thought, “That sounds really cool.” Obviously, I don’t have a male voice, but I thought, “I could have a male perspective.” Patty Griffin wrote this song, “Top of the World.” It’s one of my favorite songs of all time, and it’s from the perspective of this older man who has lived a life full of regret, and he’s kind of taking stock of that regret. So, I thought, “This is something that people I am a huge fan of have done. This would be fun to kind of take this for a spin.”

What are your favorite William Bowery conspiracies?

I love them all individually and equally. I love all the conspiracy theories around this album. [With] “Betty,” Jack Antonoff would text me these articles and think pieces and in-depth Tumblr posts on what this love triangle meant to the person who had listened to it. And that’s exactly what I was hoping would happen with this album. I wrote these stories for a specific reason and from a specific place about specific people that I imagined, but I wanted that to all change given who was listening to it. And I wanted it to start out as mine and become other people’s. It’s been really fun to watch.

Taylor Swift’s Entertainer of the Year cover reunites the pop star with her ‘Folklore’ photographer, Beth Garrabrant. BETH GARRABRANT FOR EW

One of the other unique things about Folklore—the parameters around it were completely different from anything you’d done. There was no long roll out, no stadium-sized pop anthems, no aiming for the radio-friendly single. How fearful were you in avoiding what had worked in the past?

I didn’t think about any of that for the very first time. And a lot of this album was kind of distilled down to the purest version of what the story is. Songwriting on this album is exactly the way that I would write if I considered nothing else other than, “What words do I want to write? What stories do I want to tell? What melodies do I want to sing? What production is essential to tell those stories?” It was a very do-it-yourself experience. My management team, we created absolutely everything in advance—every lyric video, every individual album package. And then we called our label a week in advance and said, “Here’s what we have.” The photo shoot was me and the photographer walking out into a field. I’d done my hair and makeup and brought some nightgowns. These experiences I was used to having with 100 people on set, commanding alongside other people in a very committee fashion—all of a sudden it was me and a photographer, or me and my DP. It was a new challenge, because I love collaboration. But there’s something really fun about knowing what you can do if it’s just you doing it.

Did you find it freeing?

I did. Every project involves different levels of collaboration, because on other albums there are things that my stylist will think of that I never would’ve thought of. But if I had all those people on the photo shoot, I would’ve had to have them quarantine away from their families for weeks on end, and I would’ve had to ask things of them that I didn’t think were fair if I could figure out a way to do it [myself]. I had this idea for the [Folklore album cover] that it would be this girl sleepwalking through the forest in a nightgown in 1830 [laughs]. Very specific. A pioneer woman sleepwalking at night. I made a moodboard and sent it to Beth [Garrabrant], who I had never worked with before, who shoots only on film. We were just carrying bags across a field and putting the bags of film down, and then taking pictures. It was a blast.

Folklore includes plenty of intimate acoustic echoes to what you’ve done in the past. But there are also a lot of new sonics here, too—these quiet, powerful, intricately layered harmonics. What was it like to receive the music from Aaron and try to write lyrics on top of it?

Well, Aaron is one of the most effortlessly prolific creators I’ve ever worked with. It’s really mind-blowing. And every time I’ve spoken to an artist since this whole process [began], I said, “You need to work with him. It’ll change the way you create.” He would send me these—he calls them sketches, but it’s basically an instrumental track. The second day—the day after I texted him and said, “Hey, would you ever want to work together?”—he sent me this file of probably 30 of these instrumentals and every single one of them was one of the most interesting, exciting things I had ever heard. Music can be beautiful, but it can be lacking that evocative nature. There was something about everything he created that is an immediate image in my head or melody that I came up with. So much so that I’d start writing as soon as I heard a new one. And oftentimes what I would send back would inspire him to make more instrumentals and then send me that one. And then I wrote the song and it started to shape the project, form-fitted and customized to what we wanted to do.

It was weird because I had never made an album and not played it for my girlfriends or told my friends. The only people who knew were the people that I was making it with, my boyfriend, my family, and then my management team. So that’s the smallest number of people I’ve ever had know about something. I’m usually playing it for everyone that I’m friends with. So I had a lot of friends texting me things like, “Why didn’t you say on our everyday FaceTimes you were making a record?”

Was it nice to be able to keep it a secret?

Well, it felt like it was only my thing. It felt like such an inner world I was escaping to every day that it almost didn’t feel like an album. Because I wasn’t making a song and finishing it and going, “Oh my God, that is catchy.” I wasn’t making these things with any purpose in mind. And so it was almost like having it just be mine was this really sweet, nice, pure part of the world as everything else in the world was burning and crashing and feeling this sickness and sadness. I almost didn’t process it as an album. This was just my daydream space.

Does it still feel like that?

Yeah, because I love it so much. I have this weird thing that I do when I create something where in order to create the next thing I kind of, in my head, attack the previous thing. I don’t love that I do that but it is the thing that has kept me pivoting to another world every time I make an album. But with this one, I just still love it. I’m so proud of it. And so that feels very foreign to me. That doesn’t feel like a normal experience that I’ve had with releasing albums.

When did you first learn about Rebekah Harkness?

Oh, I learned about her as soon as I was being walked through [her former Rhode Island] home. I got the house when I was in my early twenties as a place for my family to congregate and be together. I was told about her, I think, by the real estate agent who was walking us through the property. And as soon as I found out about her, I wanted to know everything I could. So I started reading. I found her so interesting. And then as more parallels began to develop between our two lives—being the lady that lives in that house on the hill that everybody gets to gossip about—I was always looking for an opportunity to write about her. And I finally found it.

I love that you break the fourth wall in the song. Did you go in thinking you’d include yourself in the story?

I think that in my head, I always wanted to do a country music, standard narrative device, which is: the first verse you sing about someone else, the second verse you sing about someone else who’s even closer to you, and then in the third verse, you go, “Surprise! It was me.” You bring it personal for the last verse. And I’d always thought that if I were to tell that story, I would want to include the similarities—our lives or our reputations or our scandals.

How often did you regale friends about the history of Rebekah and Holiday House while hanging out at Holiday House?

Anyone who’s been there before knows that I do “The Tour,” in quotes, where I show everyone through the house. And I tell them different anecdotes about each room, because I’ve done that much research on this house and this woman. So in every single room, there’s a different anecdote about Rebekah Harkness. If you have a mixed group of people who’ve been there before and people who haven’t, [the people who’ve been there] are like, “Oh, she’s going to do the tour. She’s got to tell you the story about how the ballerinas used to practice on the lawn.” And they’ll go get a drink and skip it because it’s the same every time. But for me, I’m telling the story with the same electric enthusiasm, because it’s just endlessly entertaining to me that this fabulous woman lived there. She just did whatever she wanted.

There are a handful of songs on Folklore that feel like pretty clear nods to your personal life over the last year, including your relationships with Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun. How long did it take to crystallize the feelings you had around both of them into “My Tears Ricochet” or “Mad Woman”?

I found myself being very triggered by any stories, movies, or narratives revolving around divorce, which felt weird because I haven’t experienced it directly. There’s no reason it should cause me so much pain, but all of a sudden it felt like something I had been through. I think that happens any time you’ve been in a 15-year relationship and it ends in a messy, upsetting way. So I wrote “My Tears Ricochet” and I was using a lot of imagery that I had conjured up while comparing a relationship ending to when people end an actual marriage. All of a sudden this person that you trusted more than anyone in the world is the person that can hurt you the worst. Then all of a sudden the things that you have been through together, hurt. All of a sudden, the person who was your best friend is now your biggest nemesis, etc. etc. etc. I think I wrote some of the first lyrics to that song after watching Marriage Story and hearing about when marriages go wrong and end in such a catastrophic way. So these songs are in some ways imaginary, in some ways not, and in some ways both.

How did it feel to drop an F-bomb on “Mad Woman”?

F—ing fantastic.

And that’s the first time you ever recorded one on a record, right?

Yeah. Every rule book was thrown out. I always had these rules in my head and one of them was, You haven’t done this before, so you can’t ever do this. “Well, you’ve never had an explicit sticker, so you can’t ever have an explicit sticker.” But that was one of the times where I felt like you need to follow the language and you need to follow the story line. And if the story line and the language match up and you end up saying the F-word, just go for it. I wasn’t adhering to any of the guidelines that I had placed on myself. I decided to just make what I wanted to make. And I’m really happy that the fans were stoked about that because I think they could feel that. I’m not blaming anyone else for me restricting myself in the past. That was all, I guess, making what I want to make. I think my fans could feel that I opened the gate and ran out of the pasture for the first time, which I’m glad they picked up on because they’re very intuitive.

The stories behind Swift’s 2020 album were further illuminated in Disney+’s Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions.. DISNEY+

Let’s talk about “Epiphany.” The first verse is a nod to your grandfather, Dean, who fought in World War II. What does his story mean to you personally?

I wanted to write about him for awhile. He died when I was very young, but my dad would always tell this story that the only thing that his dad would ever say about the war was when somebody would ask him, “Why do you have such a positive outlook on life?” My grandfather would reply, “Well, I’m not supposed to be here. I shouldn’t be here.” My dad and his brothers always kind of imagined that what he had experienced was really awful and traumatic and that he’d seen a lot of terrible things. So when they did research, they learned that he had fought at the Battles of Guadalcanal, at Cape Gloucester, at Talasea, at Okinawa. He had seen a lot of heavy fire and casualties—all of the things that nightmares are made of. He was one of the first people to sign up for the war. But you know, these are things that you can only imagine that a lot of people in that generation didn’t speak about because, a) they didn’t want people that they came home to to worry about them, and b) it just was so bad that it was the actual definition of unspeakable.

That theme continues in the next verse, which is a pretty overt nod to what’s been happening during COVID. As someone who lives in Nashville, how difficult has it been to see folks on Lower Broadway crowding the bars without masks?

I mean, you just immediately think of the health workers who are putting their lives on the line—and oftentimes losing their lives. If they make it out of this, if they see the other side of it, there’s going to be a lot of trauma that comes with that; there’s going to be things that they witnessed that they will never be able to un-see. And that was the connection that I drew. I did a lot of research on my grandfather in the beginning of quarantine, and it hit me very quickly that we’ve got a version of that trauma happening right now in our hospitals. God, you hope people would respect it and would understand that going out for a night isn’t worth the ripple effect that it causes. But obviously we’re seeing that a lot of people don’t seem to have their eyes open to that—or if they do, a lot of people don’t care, which is upsetting.

You had the Lover Fest East and West scheduled this year. How hard has it been to both not perform for your fans this year, and see the music industry at large go through such a brutal change?

It’s confusing. It’s hard to watch. I think that maybe me wanting to make as much music as possible during this time was a way for me to feel like I could reach out my hand and touch my fans, even if I couldn’t physically reach out or take a picture with them. We’ve had a lot of different, amazing, fun, sort of underground traditions we’ve built over the years that involve a lot of human interaction, and so I have no idea what’s going to happen with touring; none of us do. And that’s a scary thing. You can’t look to somebody in the music industry who’s been around a long time, or an expert touring manager or promoter and [ask] what’s going to happen and have them give you an answer. I think we’re all just trying to keep our eyes on the horizon and see what it looks like. So we’re just kind of sitting tight and trying to take care of whatever creative spark might exist and trying to figure out how to reach our fans in other ways, because we just can’t do that right now.

When you are able to perform again, do you have plans on resurfacing a Lover Fest-type event?

I don’t know what incarnation it’ll take and I really would need to sit down and think about it for a good solid couple of months before I figured out the answer. Because whatever we do, I want it to be something that is thoughtful and will make the fans happy and I hope I can achieve that. I’m going to try really hard to.

In addition to recording an album, you spent this year supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the election. Where were you when it was called in their favor?

Well, when the results were coming in, I was actually at the property where we shot the Entertainment Weekly cover. I was hanging out with my photographer friend, Beth, and the wonderful couple that owned the farm where we [were]. And we realized really early into the night that we weren’t going to get an accurate picture of the results. Then, a couple of days later, I was on a video shoot, but I was directing, and I was standing there with my face shield and mask on next to my director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto. And I just remember a news alert coming up on my phone that said, “Biden is our next president. He’s won the election.” And I showed it to Rodrigo and he said, “I’m always going to remember the moment that we learned this.” And I looked around, and people’s face shields were starting to fog up because a lot of people were really misty-eyed and emotional, and it was not loud. It wasn’t popping bottles of champagne. It was this moment of quiet, cautious elation and relief.

Do you ever think about what Folklore would have sounded like if you, Aaron, and Jack had been in the same room?

I think about it all the time. I think that a lot of what has happened with the album has to do with us all being in a collective emotional place. Obviously everybody’s lives have different complexities and whatnot, but I think most of us were feeling really shaken up and really out of place and confused and in need of something comforting all at the same time. And for me, that thing that was comforting was making music that felt sort of like I was trying to hug my fans through the speakers. That was truly my intent. Just trying to hug them when I can’t hug them.

I wanted to talk about some of the lyrics on Folklore. One of my favorite pieces of wordplay is in “August”: that flip of “sipped away like a bottle of wine/slipped away like a moment in time.” Was there an “aha moment” for you while writing that?

I was really excited about “August slipped away into a moment of time/August sipped away like a bottle of wine.” That was a song where Jack sent me the instrumental and I wrote the song pretty much on the spot; it just was an intuitive thing. And that was actually the first song that I wrote of the “Betty” triangle. So the Betty songs are “August,” “Cardigan,” and “Betty.” “August” was actually the first one, which is strange because it’s the song from the other girl’s perspective.

Yeah, I assumed you wrote “Cardigan” first.

It would be safe to assume that “Cardigan” would be first, but it wasn’t. It was very strange how it happened, but it kind of pieced together one song at a time, starting with “August,” where I kind of wanted to explore the element of This is from the perspective of a girl who was having her first brush with love. And then all of a sudden she’s treated like she’s the other girl, because there was another situation that had already been in place, but “August” girl thought she was really falling in love. It kind of explores the idea of the undefined relationship. As humans, we’re all encouraged to just be cool and just let it happen, and don’t ask what the relationship is—Are we exclusive? But if you are chill about it, especially when you’re young, you learn the very hard lesson that if you don’t define something, oftentimes they can gaslight you into thinking it was nothing at all, and that it never happened. And how do you mourn the loss of something once it ends, if you’re being made to believe that it never happened at all?

“I almost didn’t process it as an album,” says Taylor Swift of making Folklore. “And it’s still hard for me to process as an entity or a commodity, because [it] was just my daydream space.”. BETH GARRABRANT FOR EW

On the flip side, “Peace” is bit more defined in terms of how one approaches a relationship. There’s this really striking line, “The devil’s in the details, but you got a friend in me/Would it be enough if I can never give you peace?” How did that line come to you?

I’m really proud of that one too. I heard the track immediately. Aaron sent it to me, and it had this immediate sense of serenity running through it. The first word that popped into my head was peace, but I thought that it would be too on-the-nose to sing about being calm, or to sing about serenity, or to sing about finding peace with someone. Because you have this very conflicted, very dramatic conflict-written lyric paired with this very, very calming sound of the instrumental. But, “The devil’s in the details,” is one of those phrases that I’ve written down over the years. That’s a common phrase that is used in the English language every day. And I just thought it sounded really cool because of the D, D sound. And I thought, “I’ll hang onto those in a list, and then, I’ll finally find the right place for them in a story.” I think that’s how a lot of people feel where it’s like, “Yeah, the devil’s in the details. Everybody’s complex when you look under the hood of the car.” But basically saying, “I’m there for you if you want that, if this complexity is what you want.”

There’s another clever turn of phrase on “This is Me Trying.” “I didn’t know if you’d care if I came back/I have a lot of regrets about that.” That feels like a nod toward your fans, and some of the feelings you had about retreating from the public sphere.

Absolutely. I think I was writing from three different characters’ perspectives, one who’s going through that; I was channeling the emotions I was feeling in 2016, 2017, where I just felt like I was worth absolutely nothing. And then, the second verse is about dealing with addiction and issues with struggling every day. And every second of the day, you’re trying not to fall into old patterns, and nobody around you can see that, and no one gives you credit for it. And then, the third verse, I was thinking, what would the National do? What lyric would Matt Berninger write? What chords would the National play? And it’s funny because I’ve since played this song for Aaron, and he’s like, “That’s not what we would’ve done at all.” He’s like, “I love that song, but that’s totally different than what we would’ve done with it.”

When we last spoke, in April 2019, we were talking about albums we were listening to at the time and you professed your love for the National and I Am Easy to Find. Two months later, you met up with Aaron at their concert, and now, we’re here talking about the National again.

Yeah, I was at the show where they were playing through I Am Easy to Find. What I loved about [that album] was they had female vocalists singing from female perspectives, and that triggered and fired something in me where I thought, “I’ve got to play with different perspectives because that is so intriguing when you hear a female perspective come in from a band where you’re used to only hearing a male perspective.” It just sparked something in me. And obviously, you mentioning the National is the reason why Folklore came to be. So, thank you for that, Alex.

[Laughs] I’m here for all of your songwriting muse needs in the future.

I can’t wait to see what comes out of this interview.

~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~

One Sister have I in our house

Emily Dickinson

1830 –1886

One Sister have I in our house -	
And one a hedge away.	
There's only one recorded,	
But both belong to me.	
  
One came the way that I came -	        
And wore my past year's gown -	
The other as a bird her nest,	
Builded our hearts among.	
  
She did not sing as we did -	
It was a different tune	-     
Herself to her a Music	
As Bumble-bee of June.	
  
Today is far from Childhood -
But up and down the hills	
I held her hand the tighter -	        
Which shortened all the miles -	
  
And still her hum 
The years among,	
Deceives the Butterfly;	
Still in her Eye 
The Violets lie	
Mouldered this many May.	        
  
I spilt the dew -
But took the morn, -	
I chose this single star	
From out the wide night's numbers -	
Sue - forevermore!

This poem is in the public domain.

Photo credit: Amherst College Library

Emily Dickinson was born on December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts. While she was extremely prolific as a poet and regularly enclosed poems in letters to friends, she was not publicly recognized during her lifetime. She died in Amherst in 1886, and the first volume of her work was published posthumously in 1890.

~~~~~~~

Taylor Swift is related to Emily Dickinson, genealogy company reveals

Ancestry.com says singer and poet are sixth cousins, three times removed, both descended from a 17th-century English immigrant

Michael Sainato

Mon 4 Mar 2024 12.58

Taylor Swift is related to the poet Emily Dickinson, according to Ancestry.com, who shared the news in an exclusive report with NBC’s Today.

On Monday, the genealogy company divulged that “Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th-century English immigrant (Swift’s ninth great-grandfather and Dickinson’s sixth great-grandfather who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut)”.

Swift’s ancestors apparently “remained in Connecticut for six generations until her part of the family eventually settled in north-western Pennsylvania, where they married into the Swift family line”.

Dickinson and Swift are sixth cousins, three times removed. Dickinson, born in 1830 in Amherst, Massachusetts, is regarded as one of the most important figures in American poetry. Dickinson lived as a recluse in her family’s home and only published anonymously while she was alive.

Notably, Swift has referenced the poet previously in public comments about her songwriting. In 2022, while accepting the Songwriter-Artist of the Decade award from the Nashville Songwriters Association International, she said: “If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great-grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the quill genre.”

Fans have also long connected Swift’s ninth studio album, Evermore, to Dickinson, noting that her release date for the album – 10 December 2020 – was Dickinson’s birthday, among other lyrical connections to the poet’s prose.

The news of this relation is apt given Swift’s upcoming album due for release in April is entitled The Tortured Poets Department. While Swift is currently on the Asia leg of her wildly successful Eras tour, she divulged during a February performance in Australia that writing her new album over the last two years reminded her “why songwriting is something that actually gets me through my life”.

~~~~Gina Rest in Peace~~~~

Tags

CELEBRITY, ENTERTAINMENT, Hollywood, Vintage fashion

Always thought God sprinkled some kind of magic on this beauty!!

JA/23

~~~~~~~

Gina Lollobrigida: Italian screen star dies at 95

Mon, January 16, 2023 at 7:49 AM PST·

Lollobrigida was nominated for three Golden Globe awards and a Bafta

Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida, one of the biggest stars of European cinema in the 1950s and ’60s, has died at the age of 95.

Often described as “the most beautiful woman in the world”, her films included Beat the Devil, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and Crossed Swords.

She co-starred alongside the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Frank Sinatra, Rock Hudson and Errol Flynn.

Her career faded in the 1960s and she moved into photography and politics.

Italy’s culture minister paid tribute, saying: “Her charm will remain eternal”

Nicknamed La Lollo, she was one of the last surviving icons of the glory days of film, who Bogart said “made Marilyn Monroe look like Shirley Temple”.

Movie mogul Howard Hughes showered her with marriage proposals. Off camera, she enjoyed a feud with fellow Italian star Sophia Loren.

Culture minister Gennaro Sangiuliano wrote on Twitter: “Farewell to a diva of the silver screen, protagonist of more than half a century of Italian cinema history. Her charm will remain eternal.”

She died in a Rome clinic, her former lawyer Giulia Citani told the Reuters news agency.

Gina Lollobrigida – at the age of 90 – performed on Italy’s version of Strictly Come Dancing in 2018

Colourful life story

Luigina Lollobrigida was born on 4 July, 1927. The daughter of a furniture manufacturer, Gina spent her teenage years avoiding wartime bombing raids before studying sculpture at Rome’s Academy of Fine Arts.

A talent scout offered her an audition at Cinecitta – then the largest film studio in Europe and Italy’s thriving “Hollywood on the Tiber”.

Lollobrigida wasn’t keen. “I refused when they offered me my first role,” she recalled. “So, they said they would pay me a thousand lire. I told them my price was one million lire, thinking that would put a stop to the whole thing. But they said yes!”

In 1947, she entered the Miss Italia beauty pageant – a competition that launched many notable careers – and came third. Two years later, she married a Slovenian doctor, Milko Skofic.

Skofic took some bikini-clad publicity shots of his new – and still relatively unknown – wife. Six thousand miles away in Hollywood, the world’s richest man sat up.

Infatuation

Hughes had just taken control of a major studio. He was more than 20 years older than Lollobrigida and famous for a string of affairs with the most glamorous women of the age – including Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth and Ava Gardner.

He tracked Lollobrigida down and offered a screen test. She accepted, expecting her husband to accompany her to America. On the day of departure, only one of the tickets Hughes had promised showed up.

Gina Lollobrigida leaning on a mirror in 1950

Hughes had divorce lawyers waiting at the airport. She was installed in a luxury hotel, given a secretary and a chauffeur, and bombarded with proposals.

He had prepared everything. Even the screen test turned out to be a scene about the end of a marriage.

The trip lasted nearly three months. She saw him daily – fending off pass after pass. To avoid the press, they often ate at cheap restaurants or in the back of his car.

Although the behaviour was clearly abusive, Lollobrigida said she enjoyed the attention. “He was very tall, very interesting,” she later recalled. “Much more interesting than my husband.”

Howard Hughes lured Lollobrigida to Hollywood and inundated her with proposals of marriage

Before she departed for Rome, Hughes presented her with a seven-year contract. It made it hugely expensive for any other US studio to hire her. “I signed it because I wanted to go home,” she said.

Hughes didn’t give up. His lawyers pursued her as far as the Algerian desert – where she was making a film. Her husband was understanding about the decade-long infatuation. He’d even play the lawyers at tennis.

Stardom

Avoiding Hollywood, Gina worked in France and Italy – making films such as The Wayward Wife and Bread, Love and Dreams.

Her first English-language picture – opposite Bogart in John Huston’s Beat the Devil – was shot on the Amalfi coast, and was the beginning of a series of starring roles alongside the world’s most glamorous men.

In Crossed Swords it was Flynn; in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Antony Quinn. She realised her celebrity was global when 60,000 turned up to greet her in Argentina. They included the country’s dashing president, Juan Peron.

She won awards for Beautiful But Dangerous – as an orphan opposite one of Italy’s finest actors, Vittorio Gassman. She played a manipulative circus performer in Trapeze, with Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis.

She disliked Sinatra, with whom she starred in Never So Few – a wartime romance shot in Myanmar and Thailand. He was late on set and got shirty when she complained. “Zero sense of humour,” she said.

Lollobrigida had little time for Frank Sinatra, her leading man in Never So Few

And disaster struck her next project. Two-thirds of Solomon and Sheba had been filmed when her co-star, Tyrone Power, had a heart attack filming a sword fight in Madrid.

One version of the story says Power died in Lollobrigida’s car on the way to hospital. Another suggests he passed away in his dressing room and was “walked” out of the studio – a scarf tied round his jaw to stop it sagging.

Whatever the truth, Power’s scenes were reshot with Yul Brynner. The film shocked late-1950s Hollywood with an orgy scene, albeit one where all were fully clothed.

Rock Hudson and Sophia Loren

In 1960, she moved to Canada – for lower taxes and a promise of legal status for her Yugoslav husband. One magazine gushed that it was “the most fetching argument ever advanced for liberal immigration policies”.

Her film career was slowing but there was still time to work with her favourite actor: Rock Hudson.

Rock Hudson and Lollobrigida were nominated for Golden Globes for their performances in Come September

They appeared together in romantic comedies Come September and Strange Bedfellows. After a lifetime fending off Hughes and most of Hollywood’s finest, Hudson’s failure to make a pass came as a shock.

“I knew right away that Rock Hudson was gay, when he did not fall in love with me,” she told one reporter.

Her feud with Loren was coming on nicely. Egged on by her husband – the film producer Carlo Ponti – Loren had claimed she was “bustier” than Lollobrigida.

Gina hit back, saying Sophia could play peasants but never ladies. “We are as different as a fine racehorse and a goat,” she said.

Lollobrigida (right) and Loren (left) at the Berlin Film festival in 1954 with a third actress, Yvonne de Carlo

Lollobrigida’s brief affair with heart transplant pioneer Christian Barnard spelled the end of her marriage. Divorce had just been legalised in Italy and she took early advantage.

“A woman at 20 is like ice,” she declared. “At 30 she is warm. At 40 she is hot. We are going up as men are going down.” She was certainly not short of admirers.

Prince Rainier of Monaco was one, in spite of his marriage to Grace Kelly. “He would make passes at me in front of her, in their home,” she claimed. “Obviously, I said no!”

Her last major film – alongside David Niven in King, Queen, Knave – came in 1972. There were tantrums on set and the production was halted three times for mysterious “eye problems”.

Lollobrigida took a few parts in American TV series – including Falcon’s Crest and Love Boat – but then reinvented herself as an artist.

Castro and court cases

This was no ageing film star vanity project. Lollobrigida was good.

She donned a disguise to take award-winning photographs of her native Italy and saw her huge marble and bronze sculptures entered at an International Expo in Seville.

She scooped the world with a rare photoshoot and interview with Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

“We spent 12 days together,” she said. “He didn’t interest me as a political leader but as a man. He realised that I hadn’t gone there to attack him and he readily accepted me.”

There was work for Unicef, the United Nations and an unsuccessful run for a seat in the European Parliament. She remained active in politics – as recently as last year, she stood for the Italian Senate, but was unsuccessful.

Younger men

Despite all her suitors, the “most beautiful woman in the world” never quite found Mr Right.

“My experience,” she said, “has been that, when I have found the right person, he has run away from me. Important men want to be the star – they don’t want to be in your shadow.”

Disastrously, she met Javier Rigau y Rafols, a charming Spaniard who was 34 years younger. They announced their engagement in 2006 – but soon called it off, citing frenzied press attention.

Rigau, however, went ahead with the wedding – allegedly using an imposter to play Lollobrigida. According to her account, she only discovered her marriage by chance when she found documents on the internet.

She took legal action; Rigau produced witnesses. He insisted Lollobrigida had agreed to marry him by proxy using a power of attorney she had once granted.

She lost the ensuing court case, but the marriage was annulled in 2019 with the blessing of the Pope.

Lollobrigida fought another legal action against her son Milko, who had asked for control of his mother’s business dealings. Now in her 80s, the action was thought to have been prompted by her new relationship with a handsome man in his 20s.

In later life, she became reclusive. But – from time to time – she would hold court at her huge villa, with its flock of white storks, on Rome’s ancient Appian Way. She would glide down her magnificent staircase, bedecked in emeralds, to greet visiting journalists with her young lover. It was Sunset Boulevard come to life.

“I am only a film star,” she had a habit of saying in a full Norma Desmond purr, “because the public wanted me to be one.”

Gina Lollobrigida lived to an age at which memories of her glory days – as part of movie world royalty in the ’50s and ’60s – have grown dim. Few of her films are now regarded as classics.

But – in her time – she was one of the greats. Her life story was as exotic as any of the roles she played.

And the maxim by which she lived, she said, was simple: “We are all born to die. The difference is the intensity with which we choose to live.”

Dominic West castle life…

Tags

Catherine FitzGerald, CELEBRITY, Dominic West, Glin Castle, Irish Castle

Catherine FitzGerald and Dominic West’s home in Ireland

I’ve always loved a great castle story, I think growing up in NYC and then in the country in Connecticut I was always privy to big, big old buildings, big old houses, big old stories and larger than life people, many were authors, photographers, actors, or artists. Everyone had art, books, music and life…big life. The fairy tale life, the magic within, the beauty abounds, the family history, the ghosts… and Dominic is such a fine actor. I truly love this story…

JA/2022

~~~~~~~

Copied from House and Garden UK

Catherine FitzGerald and her husband Dominic West have rescued her family home, Glin Castle in Ireland, from being sold, and made it into a viable commercial concern.

By Emily Tobin

17 March 2022

Photos by Andrew Montgomery

Irish folklore is rich with tremendous stories of mythical creatures, brave warriors and celebrated heroes. There is the monster that swims in the depths of the River Shannon – with its horse’s mane, gleaming eyes, nails of iron and whale’s tail. There is the sixteenth-century Black Knight of Glin, whose distraught mother – according to legend – drank the blood from his severed head after his execution in Limerick. More recently, there is the Hollywood actor who married the heiress to a handsome castle.

For more than 700 years the Knights of Glin have lived near the Shannon. Theirs is a tale of tenacity – the FitzGerald family survived the Desmond rebellions of the sixteenth century, the Cromwellian and Jacobite wars, famine and the Penal Laws. Later there was debt, debauchery and bankruptcy, but they hung on. In 1601, British troops besieged the old castle, kidnapped the Knight’s son and tied him to the mouth of a cannon. He would be blown to smithereens if his father did not surrender. The Knight shouted back in Gaelic, ‘I am virile, my wife is fertile and there are plenty more where he came from!’ Luckily, the boy managed to escape.

By the late seventeenth century, the old castle had been abandoned and the FitzGeralds moved into a thatched longhouse overlooking the Shannon. In the 1780s, John Bateman Fitzgerald, the 23rd Knight of Glin, married Margaretta Maria Fraunceis Gwyn, a wealthy heiress whose father owned Forde Abbey in Somerset. This provided temporary respite from the family’s declining fortunes. The couple planned and built the present castle, a splendid neoclassical building, with the longhouse forming the west wing. The new house boasted delicate plasterwork ceilings, Corinthian columns, and an elegant flying staircase lit by a beautiful Venetian window. By all accounts, the end of the eighteenth century was a golden moment for Glin. The FitzGeralds threw magnificent dances both at the house and on their yacht moored on the Shannon, where the family bard narrated lengthy tales in praise of his patrons. But before long they were bankrupt and it fell to their son John Fraunceis to replenish the family coffers.

Nicknamed the ‘Knight of the Women’, for reasons that will soon become apparent, John Fraunceis added castellations, false arrow slits and mullioned windows in the 1820s, in keeping with the Gothic Revival that was sweeping the country. He landscaped the park and oversaw the building of several follies and grottos, designed specifically for liaisons with his mistresses, with whom he allegedly fathered at least 15 illegitimate children – much to the disapproval of the parish priest. He was described in local verse as ‘this hoary old sinner, this profligate rare’.

And so the story continues, with stretches of financial struggle interspersed with spells of affluence. In 1923, a mob of Sinn Fein men was given short shrift by the 27th Knight. Confined to a wheelchair after a stroke, he refused to leave the castle, bellowing at the rebels, ‘Well, you will have to burn me in it, boys.’ His wife, Lady Rachel Wyndham Quin, did much to develop the garden – planting a cornucopia of exciting new species from South America, which still flourish in the west coast’s mild climate.
Desmond John Villiers FitzGerald, the 29th and final Knight of Glin, inherited the title when he was just 12 years old. In 1975, he and his wife, Olda, moved back to Glin from London and spent decades scouring auction houses for the pictures, drawings and china that had been sold in leaner times. A connoisseur of the decorative arts, a curator at the V&A, the Ireland representative for Christie’s and the president of the Irish Georgian Society, Desmond worked tirelessly to save his own inheritance and also did the same for architectural treasures across Ireland. In the age of Bungalow Bliss – the 1970 book by Irish architect Jack Fitzsimons, which became synonymous with the suburbanisation of the Irish countryside – Desmond’s work was vital. His daughter, Catherine, the current chatelaine of Glin Castle, describes him as ‘an enthusiast, an encourager and an aesthete’.

Under Olda and Desmond, the castle played host to a glittering cast of rock stars, poets, writers, artists and Anglo-Irish aristocracy. Church of Ireland clerics dined with Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Talitha Getty and the poet Seamus Heaney. Paddy Moloney, of The Chieftains, played his tin whistle in the Grand Hall and Ronnie Wood was a guest at one of Catherine’s birthday parties.

In 1993, the decision was made to turn the house into a hotel.
The family converted the attic rooms into a further six bedrooms, making a total of 15 for the guests to use. Olda revived the walled kitchen garden. But, with the impact of the financial crash reverberating across Ireland and Americans no longer visiting, Olda and Desmond were forced to close the business in 2008. Three years later, the 29th Knight died and, without a male heir to inherit the title, the hereditary knighthood was extinguished.
In 2015, Olda and her three daughters made the painful decision to sell the house and lands that had been in their family for seven centuries. An auction, held at Christie’s, of furniture and art from Desmond’s collection raised a large sum, but the house was no longer financially viable. There was interest from buyers abroad and at home, but none was deemed quite right. For two years, Glin’s fate hung in the balance, until the decision was made to take the house off the market. Catherine and her husband, actor Dominic West, committed to making the castle a going concern. ‘The house has its own spirit, which won’t let us out of its grasp,’ says Catheri

‘The story of this place is so romantic and so melancholy,’ adds Dominic. ‘With the sale of the house, I realised I was asking Catherine to give up her soul. She has devoted 20 years to the garden. It’s at the core of her being.’ Catherine has carved out a career as a successful landscape designer and is currently reviving the gardens at Hillsborough Castle. She says of Glin, ‘Growing up, my sisters and I roamed the place, making dens in the rhododendron bushes, climbing the Monterey pine and wading in the rushing, stony stream. The garden got under my skin – and for years it’s filled my dreams.’

Dominic first visited Glin for Catherine’s 21st birthday party, an experience he describes as ‘romantically full of turmoil’. Having hitched a ride from Limerick, he was swiftly introduced to several of Catherine’s other boyfriends. The pair fell in love at Trinity College, Dublin. Their paths crossed again many years later and they were married at Glin in 2010. ‘The wedding was a real hoolie,’ Dominic says. ‘The whole village was involved, with Thomas Coolahan, the publican, postman and funeral director, running the bar with gusto.’

The longstanding relationship between the village and the castle is central to this story. Glin is a beacon of culture and employment in the local economy. The house is now open for private lettings and events, with regular literature and cooking retreats by local foodies, Imen McDonnell and Cliodhna Prendergast, who founded Lens & Larder. Their recipes can be seen in ‘Castle Kitchen’ later in this issue. The castle is once again flourishing, with an array of guests filling its rooms. In May next year it will host the Rare and Special Plant Fair organised by Bord Bia (the Irish Food Board) and there are also plans to run gardening weekend retreats.

Molly Keane, the caustic chronicler of the lost Anglo-Irish world, and a frequent guest at Glin, noted the differences between English and Irish country houses. She is quoted in The Irish Home by Ianthe Ruthven as saying that English houses ‘have an air of blessed permanence. They sit low in their wooded valleys, comfortable as cups in saucers.’ While their Irish counterparts ‘are ethereal in their uselessness… their designers yielded to one object only – beauty’.

Glin is certainly beautiful, but to call it useless is to ignore the impact it has had on the FitzGerald family. ‘Glin enriches my life and my kids’ lives in terms of identity and continuum,’ explains Dominic. ‘My children are surrounded by Irish wit and humanity. They have a far broader existence than they would anywhere else in the world.’ Generation after generation of the FitzGerald family has added to Glin, each in its own way – preserving and contributing to the castle’s beauty and never striking a wrong note.

Glin Castle: glin-castle.com

Revisit our video tour of the castle’s garden made in collaboration with Nowness.

• 
• Glin Castle’s chatelaine Catherine FitzGerald, with her husband Dominic West and three of their four children, Senan, Christabel and Francis, and Catherine’s niece, Rose.
• 
• The library was painted dark blue by Mariga Guinness in the Sixties.
• 
• Dominic in the kitchen of Glin Castle

• 
• 
• Catherine’s niece Rose.
• 
• Catherine arranging flowers in the hall.
• 
• The drawing room.

• 
• 
• 
• 

• 
• 
• 
• The family walking back to the house from a sundial in the garden.
• 
• Riders and hounds from the North Kerry Harriers meet outside the castle

• 
• The family in the gateway to the old stable yard.
• 
• Catherine picking wild garlic in the garden with Cliodhna Prendergast and Imen McDonnell of Lens & Larder.
• 
• Catherine.
• 
• Rachel Duff, the castle’s chef, making soda bread.

• 
• Catherine at Chapel Gate Whiskey in nearby County Clare, tasting its award-winning whiskey with the company’s founder Louise McGuane.
• 
• Catherine with her mother Olda, the widow of the 29th Knight of Glin.
• 
• Christabel and Dominic.
• 
• Catherine and Dominic in O’Shaughnessy’s pub in the village of Glin.

Beneath Rome…Ancient Rome…

©CIRO FUSCO/ANSA/AFP via Getty Images

September 17, 2022

SINKHOLE IN THE HEART OF ROME LEADS TO THE DISCOVERY OF ANCIENT RUINS

In April 2020, a sinkhole formed in front of the historic Pantheon in Rome, Italy. While the sinkhole itself was a marvel to look at, what was truly amazing was what was discovered beneath the earth. What the archaeology team found not only provides us with a glimpse of Rome’s ancient past but begs the question of what other incredible discoveries lie just beneath the feet of the thousands of residents and tourists that walk the streets of the city each day.

©Alessandro Serrano’/AGF/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE PANTHEON

The sinkhole that appeared in the middle of Rome was discovered in front of the Pantheon, a house of worship used continuously since it was first constructed back in 117 AD.

It is located in Rome’s Piazza Della Rotonda, which is exactly where a 10-square-foot section of the earth collapsed on itself, opening a hole in the ground. After the sinkhole emerged nobody knew exactly what the archeologists would find once they began sifting through the rubble.

IT WASN’T OUT OF THE ORDINARY

Although the sinkhole in front of the Pantheon can be considered unique, sinkholes around Rome aren’t all that uncommon. This is mainly because the city is so old that all ancient quarries, tunnels, and catacombs built in the past eventually collapsed after all of those thousands of years.

Particularly in the eastern region, Rome has countless hidden cavities beneath the cobblestone streets that used to be mined, which are now full of history and waiting to be discovered.

©TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images

THEY NEVER SEEM TO END

Sinkholes in the Eternal City can sometimes reach over 100 in just the passing of one year! Nevertheless, not many of them become as popular as the hole that emerged in front of the Pantheon in April 2020.

However, this one caught the attention of countless archaeologists who figured that there had to be something worth finding beneath the ground since it was located in a part in the city that was packed full of history.

THE LEGACY OF THE PANTHEON

To this day, the Pantheon remains one of the best-preserved ancient Roman structures that were built by our ancestors thousands of years ago. Even more impressive, it is still in use today and is still utilized as a place of worship, just like it was during ancient times.

However, it is now a church that is typically closed off to tourists during the weekends so that the locals can worship in peace without being disrupted.

IT WASN’T ALWAYS A CHURCH

Even though Rome’s Pantheon may be used as a church today, that wasn’t always the purpose it served. The original structure, which is different from the one we see today was built in 25 BC by Marcus Agrippa, whose father-in-law Augustus was Rome’s first emperor.

This version was much smaller and wasn’t a church, but a place for the people of Rome to worship the Roman gods. However, the Greek words that make up “pantheon” are pan, meaning “all” and theos, meaning “gods”.

IT WAS DESTROYED BY A FIRE

Unfortunately, the original Pantheon only stood for around 100 years before a fire consumed it, destroying it almost entirely.

Then, Emperor Minitian, who ruled over Rome from 81 to 96 AD, had the temple rebuilt. Incredibly, this new temple wouldn’t prove to last long either, and it was struck by lightning and destroyed in 110 AD. This led worshipers to be superstitious about the structure, considering that it had been “struck down” twice.

EMPEROR HADRIAN WAS KNOWN FOR ORDERING THE CONSTRUCTION OF NUMEROUS STRUCTURES

It wasn’t until Emperor Hadrian rose to power in 117 AD that he decided to rebuild the Pantheon that we know today. Known for his appreciation of architecture and the arts, he made building various structures around his empire one of his main priorities.

However, one of his most notable architectural accomplishments is Hadrian’s Wall, a 73-mile wall that stretches across northern England. This wall marked the northwestern border of Rome’s territory, and beyond was considered the “end of the world”.

HADRIAN PAID HOMAGE TO HIS PREDECESSORS

Most experts agree that the third and final Pantheon was finished between the years 126 and 128. AD. When Hadrian officially opened it, he didn’t forget about those that came before him.

He added a description of the structure that confused historians for quite some time. It reads: “Marcus Agrippa the son of Lucius, three times Consul, made this.” Experts now know that Hadrian most likely built the new Pantheon on the same spot as Agrippa did.

THE PANTHEON EVENTUALLY SUFFERED FROM DISREPAIR

Just 200 years later, the capital of the Roman Empire was moved from Rome to Byzantium which is modern-day Istanbul. Unfortunately, this didn’t exactly work out for the Pantheon. During this transition, the Pantheon fell into disrepair. This continued until 609 AD when Pope Boniface IV stepped in to fix things.

He spoke with the Byzantine emperor Phocas, asking permission to give the Pantheon a new purpose, with Boniface hoping to convert it into a Catholic church, which he was allowed to do. He named it Sancta Maria ad Martyres, Latin for St. Mary and the Martyrs.

FROM PAGAN TO CATHOLIC

And just like that, the temple that was once a place of pagan worship was turned into a Catholic church. Not only was this the first time that such a transition was made, but it had a great effect on the Pantheon’s structure.

Now, the Pope had the resources to return it to its former glory and maintain it. To do so, the builders used a combination of concrete and bricks, creating three major sections which are the portico, rectangle interior, and its incredible ceiling.

ITS ROOF IS AN ARCHITECTURAL FEAT

The Pantheon’s domed roof is considered to be one of the most impressive achievements ever accomplished by Rome’s ancient architects. Incredibly, it arcs overhead without needing any kind of visible support, making it all the more impressive.

For more than 1,000 years, it held the title of the largest cupola in the world, and today remains the only concrete roof in this style that doesn’t have reinforcements to support it. So, not only is it a marvel of the ancient world but the modern world, too.

THERE’S MORE THAN JUST THE DOME

While the dome itself is incredibly impressive, with a diameter of just over 142 feet, what is even more mind-blowing is the Pantheon’s oculus in its center. At the top, there is a 28.5-foot circular opening. However, this wasn’t included just for any reason.

It’s was built specifically so that those inside could be closer to the gods that they worshiped. Architecturally, it also reduces the tension the dome places on the structure, one reason it has stood for so long.

EVEN MICHELANGELO WAS IMPRESSED

Michelangelo is considered one of the most talented artists of all time, especially those living during the Italian Renaissance. Speaking of the Pantheon, he described it as a divine design, and it was unbelievable that man could create something so perfect.

The structure’s design also inspired Thomas Jefferson, who created his own copula for his estate in Virginia, known as Monticello. Many of the American state capitol buildings have also drawn inspiration from the design.

ANOTHER CONNECTION TO THE PANTHEON

On top of impressing some of the Renaissance’s most renowned artists, it became a popular burial site for many people of importance during that time because it was made into a Catholic church.

This includes the painter Raphael and some Italian monarchs. Today, tourists from all over the world come to see the incredible architecture and the grave-sites of some incredibly notable individuals from the past.

LOST HISTORY

The modern-day Rome area has been inhabited by humans for thousands of years, even before it became a civilized city. So, understandably, a lot of this history has been lost beneath the ground. This includes a network of quarries mined by the ancient people.

The miners also dug cavities, tunnels, and catacombs that are causing the sinkholes in Rome today. Another thing that creates the sinkholes is the loose soil that the city’s foundation is built on.

INVESTIGATING THE SINKHOLE

The sinkhole opened up in front of the Pantheon in April of 2020, starting out as a 10-foot-square hole that was 8-feet deep. Although the hole itself was big, compared to everything that lies beneath Rome’s city, it was only a fraction of what could be discovered. Nevertheless, the hole provided some key insight into Rome’s past.

A team of archaeologists from ANSA took up the role of investigating the sinkhole, unsure of what they might find.

THEY FOUND ANCIENT STONES

©DeAgostini/Getty Images

When the archaeologists from ANSA first made their way into the sinkhole, they discovered paving stones that dated far back to the ancient times when Rome was the capital of the empire.

In total, there were seven of these stones which were dated to be around 25 to 27 BC. Interestingly, 27 BC was also the same year as the empire’s creation.

THE STONES WERE PART OF THE FIRST TEMPLE

As we already know, Agrippa built the first Pantheon in Rome around the same time, 25 BC to be exact, with his father-in-law, Augustus, served as Rome’s first emperor.

From this information, historians concluded that the ancient slabs of stone were part of Agrippa’s first temple’s work. What makes it even more fascinating is that Agrippa helped design the stones himself. The archaeologists were astounded by this discovery, knowing they were standing right on top of history.

HOW THE STONES ENDED UP UNDERGROUND

After the first Pantheon built by Agrippa had burned down, Hadrian had a new one built in his place, one of his many architectural achievements. Furthermore, he also ensured that the surrounding piazza was refurbished.

The piazza and Pantheon underwent further renovations at the beginning of the 200’s, which pushed the original stones used deep into the ground. However, this wasn’t the first time that these ancient stones had been unearthed during the modern age.

SOME WERE FOUND IN THE 1990’S

In the 1990’s, workers were laying a brand new network of service cables that ran through an underground tunnel. It was during this project that they found the travertine stonework laid by the ancient Romans.

While this was still an incredible find in the 1990’s, what made the discovery in April 2020 that much more fascinating was that they had been found due to a sinkhole. It was almost as if they wanted to be found.

THEY WERE REBURIED AFTER DISCOVERY

When the stones were initially found by those working on the service cables in the 1990’s, they were examined and then reburied. Nevertheless, they were buried with a layer of pozzolan on top.

The superintendent of Rome, Daniela Porro explained in a statement that pozzolan is a material that is similar to cement when wet. So, adding a layer on top after returning the stone to the earth acts as a form of protection from damage over time.

THE POZZOLAN WAS SUCCESSFUL

When the stones were once again uncovered in April 2020, Porro made sure to mention how the pozzolan had successfully protected the artifacts.

In a statement in May 2020, she commented that it was, “an unequivocal demonstration of how important archaeological protection is, not only an opportunity for knowledge but fundamental for the preservation of the testimonies of our history, an invaluable heritage in particular in a city like Rome.”

THE SINKHOLE HELPED PREVENT A DISASTER

Because of all of their planning and preservation tactics that were put in place to protect the stones, the Romans were lucky regarding the timing of the Pantheon’s sinkhole finally opened up.

The national Italian newspaper La Stampa reported that “The area, fortunately closed, could have become a hazardous trap for Romans and the thousands of tourists who on a beautiful day in the middle of spring, in a ‘normal’ period, would have filled it.”

ROME HAS PRECAUTIONS PUT IN PLACE

Thankfully, Rome’s government is well-aware of the dangers of sinkholes that plague the city, which is one of the downsides of living in such a historic area.

To help correct the problem, in March 2018, the city announced its plan to fix the more than 50,000 potholes that riddled the city to prevent them from opening into sinkholes. The mayor, Virginia Raggi, designated a €17 million (more than $20.5 million) budget to put the project into action and stop future problems.

THINGS DIDN’T GO AS PLANNED

When Raggi first announced her new plan to fix the potholes, she promised that 50,000 of them would be filled and fixed within the first month of the program. Yet, since the spring of 2020, the project has been delayed significantly.

Because of this, potholes still remain a great danger to both the thousands of citizens and tourists of Rome that walk the streets every day. Furthermore, sinkholes have continued to form due to a lack of maintenance.

OTHER SINKHOLES AT HISTORIC SITES

Although the sinkhole in front of the Pantheon was all the buzz for a while, it wasn’t the only sinkhole to open up near one of Rome’s most historic locations. In January 2020, one of these craters opened up on Via Marco Aurelio, which is very close to the iconic Colosseum.

As a result, the city officials had to evacuate an entire apartment building as they closely inspected the safety of the ground surrounding the new hole.

Balmoral Castle

Oh my goodness this is a sad day. I have adored and admired Her Majesty the Queen my entire life. It is heartwarming she was at her beloved Balmoral Castle at the time of her passing. She was welcoming people two days prior to her passing as seen in photo. Always her duty was priority. 70 years she served with grace. May she now rest well.. My heartfelt condolences to the Royal family on the passing of your Queen.

JA/2022

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THE ROYAL FAMILY

Balmoral Castle: Everything You Need to Know About Where the Queen Spent Her Final Days

The Scottish holiday home of the British royal family was especially beloved by the late monarch, Queen Elizabeth II

By Madeleine Luckel and Jordi Lippe-McGraw

September 8, 2022

It was a tradition for Queen Elizabeth II to spend part of her summer at Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands. This year was no different, and, with her health declining, the 96-year-old British monarch ended up taking her last breath at the beloved property on September 8, 2022.

Her family, including her son Charles (now officially King Charles III) and grandson Prince William, traveled to Royal Deeside, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, to be by her side in her final days at the castle, which was long said to have been her favoriite.

So what is interesting about the Queen’s former summer home? Below, we break down what exactly a design buff needs to know about the vacation palace—from its history and architecture to its interiors and surrounding grounds. Queen Elizabeth II did a good job of keeping the extravagant dwelling private, but there are a few interesting design details that have slipped out over the years. (It also served as the setting of an especially memorable episode in Season 4 of The Crown, aptly titled “The Balmoral Test.”) 

Where exactly is it?

Royal Deeside, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It’s on the River Dee and not far from the Lochnagar Mountain. Balmoral Castle is roughly 500 miles from Buckingham Palace, a nine-hour drive.

Who owns it?

Though official royal residences like Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace are owned by the Crown Estate—which is funded by British taxpayers—Balmoral was Elizabeth’s personal property, inherited through her family. Her only other privately owned residence is Sandringham, located in Norfolk, England.

How long has the British royal family had it? 

It was first rented in 1848 and was bought in 1852. It was purchased by Prince Albert for himself and his wife, Queen Victoria. He acquired Balmoral six years after the couple first visited Scotland. It’s been passed down through the royal family ever since. 

Balmoral has technically been around since the 15th century, but several additions and renovations over the years have transformed the home into something far from the original version.

What’s important to know about its architecture?

Its style is considered to be Scottish baronial and Gothic revival. When Prince Albert purchased Balmoral, it was decided that it was too small for the royal family. The prince, Queen Victoria, and their children lived in the castle while a new one was being built. After the project was completed—in 1856—the original castle was demolished. The replacement was built by father-son architects John and William Smith (who were both Scots). It was constructed out of local granite and organized into two sections, each of which revolves around a courtyard space. A turreted clocktower remains an eye-catching feature to this day. 

Prince Albert was deeply involved in the design process. He was also responsible for a series of smaller additions to the property, such as the main farmhouse. After the prince’s 1861 death, Queen Victoria had a series of cottages built on the property which are still in use. She built the Garden Cottage for her children, Baile-na-Coille for her servant, and Karim Cottage for her Indian secretary. In 2019, Prince William, Kate, and their kids reportedly stayed in a three-bedroom cottage on the estate called Tam-na-Ghar during a visit.

One of the cottages at Balmoral—called Birkhall—belongs to now King Charles III and Queen Consort Camilla. The former inherited it when his grandmother, the Queen Mother, died in 2002, and the couple spent their honeymoon there in 2005.

Today, the 19th-century property is considered a Category A historic building. There are reportedly 150 buildings on the property in total.

Tell me all about the interiors.

While Balmoral Castle contains numerous rooms, some are particular standouts. One prime example is the ballroom. With gigantic chandeliers, mounted stag heads, and trefoil designs, its a masterclass in Highlands style. 

Illustrations from the 1800s give some sense of what the rooms of Balmoral looked like during Queen Victoria’s heyday. Plaid upholstery, patterned wall coverings, fire screens, carved-wood cabinets, and framed landscapes proliferated. There were also plenty of candelabra—a practical necessity at the time. A study belonging to Prince Albert had a similar aesthetic, down to the plaid carpeting. That personal room also made great use of pretty white floral fabrics and a green wallpaper speckled with white blossoms. Apparently, Prince Albert believed that the interiors of Balmoral should be filled with Highland details such as tartans and chintzes, with trophies and weapons decorating the walls. 

Photographs indicate that dark green appears frequently throughout the residence. There are also mirror-topped marble fireplaces, upholstered chairs with box-pleated skirts, and lots of leather-bound books. Despite the presence of stately clocks and light fixtures, it’s not without its modern-day conveniences—like flat screen televisions. Queen Elizabeth had her own study, which, during the 1970s, was carpeted in that same distinct plaid. That room also includes fine wooden furniture and floral drapes to cover bay windows. 

Does it have great garden grounds?

Yes. It’s also 50,000 acres. While the rugged Scottish landscape takes up most of the area, there are also more manicured parts. Queen Mary, for example, created a flower garden. Nearby, Prince Philip contributed additions of his own. When Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip took over the estate, the late Duke of Edinburgh took a keen interest in the gardens. His contributions include a vegetable garden, water garden, floral walkway, and oak-filled area. There’s one heartwarming hidden gem out in the wild—a statue of Queen Victoria’s collie dog, called Noble.

What is it used for today?

Royal family holidays. The Queen tends to go to Balmoral during the summer. Notably, King Charles III and Princess Diana visited on their honeymoon. Years later, the Queen was at Balmoral when she was informed of Princess Diana’s death. It’s also where King Charles III and the Queen Consort Camilla isolated toward the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Original post in Architectural Digest 9/8/2022

Her Royal Highness take a rest now…

Oh my goodness this is a sad day. I have adored and admired Her Majesty the Queen my entire life. It is heartwarming she was at her beloved Balmoral Castle at the time of her passing. She was welcoming people two days prior to her passing as seen in photo. Always her duty was priority. 70 years she served with grace. May she now rest well.. My heartfelt condolences to the Royal family on the passing of your Queen.

~~~~~~~ JA/2022

Kimberly Biehl and Mae West…

This woman is fabulous!! I’ve known her a bunch of years online and she never ceases to surprise. I love her way, and adore her taste in decor and her fashion sense. I know we’d fight over estate sale items!! You can find her on Instagram.

JA/2022

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Designer Kimberly Biehl’s fascination with old Hollywood began as a child. That was around the same time that her quest to discover and bring new life to old pieces also began. She started shopping at estate sales, garage sales, and flea markets in her teens. “As soon as I could drive, that’s where I was,” she says.

It’s no wonder then that Kimberly’s own home is filled with old Hollywood relics and classic furniture pieces she’s breathed new life into. What is a wonder, though, is that it’s happening in a piece of old Hollywood itself. Kimberly lives in the former apartment of Mae West, in the historic Ravenswood apartment building.

Kimberly found the apartment through some serendipity. A friend told her there was an open house at Mae’s former apartment, so Kimberly went. Although she wasn’t looking to purchase an apartment at that moment, she fell head over heels. “It had high ceilings, amazing views, and most importantly the Mae West connection,” she says. “The arch, the moldings, the tile, the windows—it was all frozen in time. Within 15 minutes I was plotting my move here.”

Mae had made the apartment famous in its own right because she was photographed there often. A feature published in Architectural Digest 1994 looked back at her 48 years in the home and quoted her as saying, “There’s always been just one way—what’s right for me.” Kimberly has found a challenge in embracing that same edict. How does she make the place that was right for Mae West right for herself, while also paying homage to the star?

“I’ve tried to find the balance between honoring her memory and having my own design style,” Kimberly says. “Her fabulous place was all white and gold, which is not me.” Instead of making the apartment a museum to how Mae West wanted it, Kimberly has gone full-force into making it how she wants it. She also celebrates the star by holding salons in the space—at which a glass is always raised to her—introducing a younger generation to Mae as often as she can, and displaying some of her “wonderful treasures.”

Among the items in the apartment that belonged to Mae is a banner that bears the West family crest, bottles of the perfume she wore, and the check she wrote when she bought the apartment in 1930. These items join an expansive collection of other old Hollywood relics, including a pair of John Lennon’s glasses, furniture owned by Elizabeth Taylor, several items owned by Mary Pickford, and so much more. But it isn’t just old Hollywood. The priceless pieces are in fusion with Kimberly’s own style, which she describes as “Paris art nouveau.”

“My vision was a Paris apartment in the 1930s,” she says. “I loved all those old photos of people sitting around talking, having a glass of wine, and listening to good music, surrounded by art.”

To achieve her vision, she coupled the timeless with bold and eye-catching wallpapers and stunning art. A centerpiece is a wall in the living room that Kimberly calls her wall of kooks. It’s a gallery of painted portraits she’s gathered through the years—some from dumpsters, some purchased at auction for $2,000. “It’s a variety pack, just like the rest of my apartment,” she says. She notes that her connection to them isn’t about how much she paid for them. One of her favorites, an odd scene featuring a green man, is also one of the ones that came from a dumpster. “Each one speaks to me in a different way.”

Kimberly says guests almost always ask for the “Mae West tour” wishing to know what details of the apartment are hers. The bathrooms, for instance, still have the original tiling, and you can still see the outline of a mirror Mae had on the bedroom ceiling. “I am endlessly honored to live here, and want to do everything I can to preserve it for the next people who get the pleasure of living in her world,” Kimberly says. But, she continues, she’s definitely not planning on moving anytime soon.

Copied from Architectural Digest 2022

Shoshone Indians *Western*

Got my new to me 2bdrm. condo with garage in the middle of nowhere WILD WILD West Pahrump, NV. ( showing the area in the photos as you swipe in the distance). My lease begins first day of Spring I’m renting for a year, then possibly buy something up there. It’s a part of Nevada that’s been quickly growing the 8 mths. (This pandemic is truly changing the landscape of our land values.) I’ve been away. Don’t want to miss out on the low prices. There’s a photo of the park in walking distance. Also photo of abandoned golf course park where a herd of wild horses come behind condo in walking distance. And not shown here is a walking trail in a huge nature preserve with small pond, filled with wild animals, water creatures, also in walking distance!!

I love the WILD WILD WEST.  I don’t want to leave.  I’d miss it too much and the memories of other places aren’t truly home.  Nevada has been my home now since late 1988 early 1989.  I always come back when I leave.  I love the mountain scenery, the available lake water resources, the fresh air and all the glorious wildlife that call it home. And this area has four seasons.  I desire this in my life again. The big city, Las Vegas, is no longer for me.

I truly appreciate the romance of the historic value, THE WEST, head west… the fantastic and sad stories of the people who drove wagon trains to make their fortune, stake their claim in the world, just fascinates me. It always has. Watching westerns on television in my youth in the 1960’s was the start of my love of this magical land.  Finding the treasures in the time period of historic fashion are here for me to revamp my fashion side of business to my particular liking. 1900’s through early 1970’s.  I can source in the larger areas and the small country towns all around this area of Nevada and the California border.

This area is a train trip away from Los Angeles, Denver, Portland, Carmel by the Sea, Northern California and so on.  In all of these places I will find many treasures for my business.  Family and friends are in many of these locations!! 

I’m ready.  I will not change my mind. I’ve done enough research over the years and just recently. Nevada, I thank you!! 

~~~~~~~ JA/2022

UPDATED 5 SEPTEMBER, 2018 – 01:48 

The Nomadic Survival Tactics of the Shoshone Tribe

• The Shoshone Tribe would better be described as a nation or a people than a tribe. They are scattered over a big area in three main groups in three states, Nevada, Idaho, and Wyoming, with their roots being in the far West of the United States.The Shoshone call themselves Newe, which means “People.” The name Shoshone comes from their word sosoni, which is a kind of grass that grows tall. Other tribes on the American Plains called them the Grass House People, probably a reference to the conical houses made of sosoni grass that they built in the Great Basin of Nevada and Utah.

A Western Shoshone basket bowl.

Some Plains natives also called the Shoshone the Snake People. The sign for snake in Indian sign language is the same sign the Shoshone use for salmon. Salmon were unknown to the people of the Great Plains

5,000 Shoshone Language Speakers

“The Shoshone language is spoken by approximately 5,000 people across Nevada, Idaho, and Wyoming. It belongs to the western branch of the Numic group of Uto- Aztecan languages,” states the encyclopedia article, written by Christopher Loether of Idaho State University.

There is some speculation and debate about how the ancestors of the Shoshone, the Numa, came to live across such a large part of Nevada, Utah and contiguous areas of Wyoming and Idaho. Originally, anthropologists speculate, they lived in the southwestern corner of the Great Basin.

Indian Encampment, Shoshone Village (1860) by Albert Bierstadt.

But they crossed the Rocky Mountains by 1500 AD and expanded northward to the Great Plains. Around 1700, one group of Shoshone people inhabited the Southern Plains and became the Comanches.

The Eastern Shoshones ended up in central Wyoming after wars with Blackfeet, Crows, and Assiniboine from 1780 to 1825.

Male and Female Roles in Shoshone Society

In Shoshone society, men hunted, made war, and made the economic and political decisions. The women gathered the plants and butchered and prepared the bison that was so important to their lives. Women also did other household chores and crafted clothing and their tipis. The women also provided child care.

The encyclopedia says, “Bison meat played an extremely significant role culturally and economically in the lives of the Eastern Shoshones, accounting for about 50 percent of their diet at the height of the Plains horse culture in the 1700’s.”

But the Shoshone also fished and hunted elk, mule deer, mountain sheep and jackrabbit, all of which provided protein for their diets. Berries could be made into soup or pemmican. Pemmican, which is known to many other tribes, is dried, powdered meat mixed with fat and berries. The Shoshone also ate roots, which they baked in earthen ovens.

Pemmican ball. (Jen Arr)

Because the men hunted and the women gathered, marriage was important not just for emotional and conjugal support, but also because the husband and wife worked as an economic unit (hunting and gathering),according to the site Shoshone tribe by Jennifer Nelson.

Horses and Shoshone Way of Life

On another web page of Shoshone Tribe, it says the horse, acquired from the Spanish in the 16th century, became vitally important. The Shoshone became more mobile, could carry heavier loads and moved more efficiently in hunting bison. Ms. Nelson writes:

“Horses also gave the Shoshone power over other Native Tribes by increased territory and trade opportunities. Horses allowed the Shoshone to expand their territory into what is now Canada and successfully push back the Blackfeet tribes in the North. Shoshone traded horses with neighboring tribes in the Northwest including the Blackfeet, Nez Perce, Cayuse, Spokan, and Bannock tribes.”

‘Buffalo hunt on the Southwestern plains’ (1845) by John Mix Stanley.

The industry and arts of the Shoshone involved working with wood, animal products of bone, leather, sinew, and minerals of flint, slate, and obsidian. Most leather work was done by women. But the men made leather bowstrings, rattles, drums, and shields. Iron was important, but it was available to the Shoshone only through trade.

The Shoshone chief usually was an older man who was battle-hardened and who was thought to have supernatural powers. The chief decided the tribe’s movements and controlled collective hunts.

If there was war, a second, special war chief was named. The two Shoshone military societies were the Logs, older men who took up the rear, and the Yellow Bows, young warriors who went in front. These societies also provided policing when the tribe came together.

Rabbit Tail, a Shoshone scout.

Shoshone Religion

Ms. Nelson says religion varied among the Shoshone. The people may not have religious leaders, but “individuals in the tribe will seek out supernatural connections through visions and dreams.” As Ms. Nelson writes:

“The Shoshone had a wide range of religious beliefs and practices. Some bands believed the sun created the heavens and the earth while others attribute life to the mythological characters Coyote or Wolf or a spirit called ‘Our Father.’”

 The encyclopedia says Eastern Shoshone adopted the Sun Dance and the Native American Church.

Top image: ‘Shoshone Indian and his Pet Horse’ (1858-1860) by Alfred Jacob Miller.

By Mark Miller

Duffy. Freedom.

Tags

Duffy, ENTERTAINMENT

Brave woman. May she find her love in her life and only move into tomorrow.

JA/2021

~~~~~~~

The 5th House

It troubles me that this story contains sorrow, when so many need the opposite of that at this time. I can only hope that my words serve as a momentary distraction or maybe even some comfort that one can come out of darkness.

We are in troubling times, where we’ve not seen such national and global worry since World War II. Now, it’s more important than ever to think about the impact we have on each other.

There will be great change to come from our shared crisis, a renewed understanding and appreciation of freedom and human connection. But nothing comforts loss, only time.

I’m not an academic or public speaker but I have to mention our current crisis. These are tragic days. Like you I worry about relatives, loved ones and colleagues. Our tears are shared. The only cure now is prevention, by staying in and allowing the frontline workers to cope.

I could have decided to not release further words during these times, I don’t think there is ever a right time, since promising to follow up in due course.

If you are reading this, I must warn you it contains information some may find upsetting. This story is not going anywhere, it will remain online, if you are not able to take on someone else’s suffering or the recounting of such, I recommend you do not read on.

For me, in these hours, I recall the words of Maya Angelou who once said “there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you”, and I share mine with you today.

I posted the words I wrote, a few weeks ago, because I was tired of hiding. Never feeling free or burden free. I had become enmeshed with my story like a dark secret. It made me alone and feel alone.

What is also hard to explain is that, in hiding, in not talking, I was allowing the rape to become a companion. Me and it living in my being, I no longer wanted to feel that intimacy with it, a decade of that intimacy has been destructive. I had to set myself free. I have been hurt and it would have been dangerous to talk from that hurt place in the past, prior to feeling ready.

Unable to do what I am doing today, previously, I also considered and explored human rights laws to change my name off public record and disappear to another country and maybe become a florist or something, so that I could put the past behind with a new life.

Because, although I was almost unfindable, I daydreamed of having a different haircut, a new name, a boyfriend, and become completely forever forgotten. As time went on it then became about realising, I can’t keep hiding, as thrilling as coffee in Paris seems.

Since the incident I experienced happened, it was upsetting to think of talking openly, frightening. Seasons would pass and come and go and I would be further removed from where I once was, every year. The longer I left it, the less I could see an image in my mind, of something I recognised that I could reach back to. That’s why I, at times, would admit defeat and think I can’t ever talk and face it. So, I should just keep disappearing, turning the lights off in my life.

Having not yet established a thriving personal life, or had my own family, I would be anguished thinking if I reveal my story publicly, openly to the world, it would hinder my future romantic life. This is not exactly the advert I wanted before meeting the love of my life.

I would also worry about coming back to music and the risk of constantly facing the question of “what happened”, “where did you disappear to”, “why did you vanish”, “what have you been up to for so many years”.

I could not imagine fabricating some story, that I had been rowing across the world’s seas, I would have had to lie, and I couldn’t lie. So, between fears of not being able to emotionally withstand speaking, not being able to lie, and concerns of inheriting a stigma that could affect my future personal life, I would decide to not speak at all, remain vanished, or to daydream of reinventing myself forever.

I thought the public disclosure of my story would utterly destroy my life, emotionally, while hiding my story was destroying my life so much more. So, I just have to be strong and disclose it, and face all my fears head on. I’ve come to realise I can’t erase myself, I live in my being, so I have to be completely honest and have faith in the outcome.

I never knew if I would get to the place of being able to do this, I am grateful to get here. Not everyone has the privilege of being able to talk, such as I am doing today, stories much more heinous and sorrowful, more inhumane than mine, go untold every day.

All of our lives have immense meaning and value, and when we come to really realise nothing matters but humanity, we begin to really see each other, by the tragedies and joys we all share. Our smiles and our tears are what make us all the same.

And while we are observing a great amount of suffering and loss in our world, in what seems like a battle that cannot be won, it compels us to truly appreciate the gift of life, and the gift of love, and the values that matter the most.

I have been very warned by some I know not to tell you what I am about to tell you. Some alluded that I would pretty much be finished in whatever chances I have to make music publicly again, some have said I would be scorned by the public, another said I would be called selfish that the rapist is still at large.

It has served to delay my talking by weeks, and me just lying in bed looking at the ceiling trying to find meaning. I take my personal freedom over any amount of stones that can be thrown at me. If I destroy my future, I do it to honour my past.

Rape stripped me of my human rights, to experience a life with autonomy from fear. It has already stolen one third my of life. Deep down I do know it would have been a shame and done such an immense disservice, to my existence, to just delete myself and forget what I had experienced in music publicly.

It was also not just my burden, so many others lived with the big question too of “what happened”. The record label, live agents, promoters, publicists, musicians, stylists, hairdressers, make-up, lighting, production, crew, people I would meet, people I once knew. No one, utterly no one, knew what happened. It kept me removed from those I could actually trust. Mostly I did not want to trouble anyone else with what I had experienced.

The final catalyst of wanting to talk was unusual I think, what really finally made me go “I just can’t bear the weight of this anymore”. It was so simple but so profound, what would be the catalyst to make me un-trap myself.

It was being told by a male, I had come to know and really like as a friend, that “most men would run a mile if they knew you were raped”. I crumbled. I felt very hurt for a few days and reflected a lot and I thought, one night, like an epiphany, that the knowledge of my truth ‘makes me no less lovable’. The dream of love did die, I finally realised it didn’t need to. And just like a light came on I realised ‘I know what it is to hurt, therefore I know what it is to be human’.

Please skip the next twenty lines if you do not want to read the exact account of the kidnapping.

It was my birthday, I was drugged at a restaurant, I was drugged then for four weeks and travelled to a foreign country. I can’t remember getting on the plane and came round in the back of a travelling vehicle. I was put into a hotel room and the perpetrator returned and raped me. I remember the pain and trying to stay conscious in the room after it happened. I was stuck with him for another day, he didn’t look at me, I was to walk behind him, I was somewhat conscious and withdrawn. I could have been disposed of by him. I contemplated running away to the neighbouring city or town, as he slept, but had no cash and I was afraid he would call the police on me, for running away, and maybe they would track me down as a missing person. I do not know how I had the strength to endure those days, I did feel the presence of something that helped me stay alive. I flew back with him, I stayed calm and as normal as someone could in a situation like that, and when I got home, I sat, dazed, like a zombie. I knew my life was in immediate danger, he made veiled confessions of wanting to kill me. With what little strength I had, my instinct was to then run, to run and find somewhere to live that he could not find.

The perpetrator drugged me in my own home in the four weeks, I do not know if he raped me there during that time, I only remember coming round in the car in the foreign country and the escape that would happen by me fleeing in the days following that. I do not know why I was not drugged overseas; it leads me to think I was given a class A drug and he could not travel with it. 

After it happened, someone I knew came to my house and saw me on my balcony staring into space, wrapped in a blanket. I cannot remember getting home. The person said I was yellow in colour and I was like a dead person. They were obviously frightened but did not want to interfere, they had never seen anything like it.

Thereafter, it didn’t feel safe to go to the police. I felt if anything went wrong, I would be dead, and he would have killed me. I could not risk being mishandled or it being all over the news during my danger. I really had to follow what instincts I had. I have told two female police officers, during different threatening incidents in the past decade, it is on record.

And as I grieved what ‘I must have done to invite this into my life’, I read something that said, “in the end, it’s never between them and you, it’s always between them and God”. That helped me a lot in the absence of justice.

Once someone threatened to ‘out’ my story and I had to tell a female police officer what information the person held about me, and why the blackmail was so frightening. The second incident was when three men tried to enter my house as intruders, I told the second female officer about the rape then also. The identity of the rapist should be only handled by the police, and that is between me and them.

The first person I ever told was a psychologist, months later, a leading expert in the UK in complex trauma and sexual violence. I have no idea how I was so lucky to find her all those years ago, her beautiful blue eyes, pink sofa, huge library, amazing brain and skill. Without her I may not have made it through. I was high risk of suicide in the aftermath. She got to know me, saw me as a person, learned about me and navigated me. She did it very gently. I could not look her in the eyes for the first eight or so sessions, eye contact was something I struggled with. The thought of recovering was almost impossible. 

In the aftermath I would not see someone, a physical soul, for sometimes weeks and weeks and weeks at a time, remaining alone. I would take off my pyjamas and throw them in the fire and put on another set. My hair would get so knotted from not brushing it, as I grieved, I cut it all off.

I am sharing this because we are living in a hurting world and I am no longer ashamed that something deeply hurt me, anymore. I believe that if you speak from the heart within you, the heart within others will answer. As dark as my story is, I do speak from my heart, for my life, and for the life of others, whom have suffered the same.

I have no shame in telling you either I had spent almost ten years completely alone, and it still burns my heart to write it. I owe it to myself to say it, I feel obliged to explain how challenging recovering truly was, and to finally disclose it. I hope it comforts you to feel less ashamed, if you feel alone.

After the rape and kidnaping I had a handful of romantic experiences and each one would “love bomb” me and want the person on the album cover, while I was just a person hurt. It was futile.

You may wonder where was my family? Those who wanted to help – were just too far away. The toll of me hiding, this last decade, also meant I was estranged from all. What happened was not only a betrayal to me, to my life, a violence that nearly killed me, it stole a lot from other people too. I was just not the same person for so long. Rape is like living murder, you are alive, but dead. All I can say is it took an extremely long time, sometimes feeling never ending, to reclaim the shattered pieces of me.

This may hit a nerve with you reading this because I know you are all isolated at this time. I should probably elaborate on how I survived that seclusion, further down this piece.

I promise you, I know a pain, to the guts of all my being and I cannot let it cloud my life anymore. I now stand in all of me. But I do not want your pity. I’m telling you all this to put my wounds to the light where the dark can no longer keep me. I would not be telling you the account of my experiences if I did not now know true healing.

I’m not proud of my story, I mourned wishing I had been dealt another hand, but it happened, and I have come to terms with it.

It took so long for me to speak because after I was raped and held captive, I fled. I moved five times in the immediate three years after, never feeling safe from the rapist, I was on the run for so long. I found somewhere to live, the 5th house, it was not as confined as the other houses, where I grieved silently, in townhouses or apartments. This place I would spend solitary years to find the stability to recover, I had stopped running and relocating. I felt he could not find me in the 5th house, I felt safe. I feel safe now.

When the ordeal happened, it destabilised me so severely, it took years and years, around 90,000 hours. I sometimes didn’t know how I could make it through, it was hard and almost impossible. But I got here, as will you. Hallelujah.

I came back to Wales recently, I stood and looked at the sea and felt a part of me breathe again, I had distanced myself from it all. Then the catalyst I mentioned, being told “most men would run a mile”, made me face the fear of it not hindering my romantic life. Ironically rape is not only an assault, it’s a brain injury … and although I may sometimes get frightened still, it has nothing to do with love.

Finally, the realisation that very thing that hurt me, will become the very thing that heals me. I faced a deeply inhumane experience; only humanity can heal that.

Ostracization and isolation is known to be a form of torture. If anyone would have told me I would share my times of isolation, with a nation isolated, I would never have believed them.

What I can share though, at this time, during this shared experience is the science. The brain’s ‘dorsal anterior cingulate cortex’, which registers physical pain, is activated when we are isolated.

Knowing the mind’s science enables you to manage it. And isolation is a small price to pay for saving lives, therefore we must be strong in the face of it. This demands us all, as one, to act for each other; never has mindfulness been so vital as it is now.

If you are reading this and are sad my encouragement to you is that … to know pain, you must first know how to love. Only the absence of love causes pain. So, go find it. Seek love in everything, even in a teacup.

There is also a real science to being grateful. Research shows that gratitude can heal your body, mind, and those you are grateful to. So, by being thankful, for what you do have, and the selfless acts of others during this time, lifts you and them.

And of talking of community and human thoughtfulness, some of you really helped me in real time when you wrote comments beneath the original statement I wrote. You put “do not be afraid to run for cover”, another said “breathe, just breathe” as I was worried about what I had done, when it went so quickly to the news, as I could not sleep some nights.

One of you wrote “I feel you will always be protected from here” I agreed, I knew what you meant. I faced my greatest life lesson to speak.

Before our current crisis people offered me their homes, to come and have food with them, their telephone numbers and personal stories. It’s been very intimate to be with those comments, that people wrote, and read them. And this is what defines the power of people, of kindness, and humanity. I did not expect any kind of reaction similar to the volume of what was seen. Thank you. I did not speak to seek friends, but the kindness was an emotional experience for me.

I also received messages, from others whom were sexually abused and raped, of all ages and races and places and genders. I want you to know I saw and read them. I read every word, and your story lives on in me.

If you saw the messages I have received, on Instagram, from young males whom have been raped, women whose cases were adjourned, lives that have been stolen in violence. One young man said, “I will never be able to be liberated like you” (from rape). He cannot walk the streets of his home, afraid. This is a weapon of war. I hope they too can find a way to be liberated in their own way, as I am finding mine.

Anyone cynical about what I am doing- please don’t be. I have no control where my words travelled or will travel. I speak as a human being, from a remote town, overlooking the sea, in the middle of nowhere. This is not fireworks and champagne for me. Nobody who reveals such a wound feels elated, only peace.

And so, what about music from here maybe you ask? When I sing, I feel like a bird. But it’s not what this is directly about. I’m doing this to be freed, for all of me to be freed. What follows remains to be seen.

I also won’t be doing any more unannounced statements on this. As liberating it’s been to finally speak and to finally sing, albeit on radio, I will now return to quietness. I thank Jo Whiley for letting me share a song on radio, during these times. Meant a lot to me.

I know this much though, I owe it to myself to release a body of work someday, though I very much doubt I will ever be the person people once knew. My music will be measured on the merit of its quality and this story will be something I experienced and not something that describes me.

And as for you … They do say nothing worthwhile came without sacrifice, your personal actions, decisiveness and commitment, is making the difference now. As we come together, we see results, and there is just so much hope to take from that.

And I really don’t know what’s next for me. I would like to experience me being who I really am, for the first time, privately. To feel a peace that I have been, until now, only half feeling.

I ask myself now, as I write this … what makes me feel more beautiful, more hopeful and more at peace? So, if I do indeed press SEND and put this online, I hope it brings me the smile in my eyes, the light in my life, that has been absent for just so long.

I can now leave this decade behind. Where the past belongs. Hopefully no more “what happened to Duffy” questions, now you know… and I am free.

April 5, 2020 Duffy

Mussomeli Province of Caltanissetta, Italy

They bought a $1 house in Italy, then Covid-19 struck

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2/13 Stranded by Covid: While buying a cheap house in Italy seems like a dream, there can be complications, especially during a pandemic. Maurizio Di Maria, Comune Mussomeli (CNN) —  When Italian towns began offering houses for sale for little more than $1, they inspired legions of dreamers to take a gamble on moving to a remote corner of Italy.Although spending a few thousand dollars extra on renovating the property was usually part of the deal, it was sweetened by the prospect of a new life in an idyllic spot in a beautiful country.And then the coronavirus struck, plunging the world into crisis, with Italy among the worst affected countries.So what happens when you’re quarantined in a crumbling home in a remote village where you barely speak the language and can’t get home to your loved ones? Does life quickly become a nightmare?Perhaps surprisingly given the hardships that followed, the answer seems to be no.Related content We bought a $1 house in Italy. Here’s what happened next CNN spoke to a few people who bought some of the Italian homes being offered cheaply by towns wanting to reverse declining population trends.We found them feeling upbeat and eager to complete their property remodeling and make their Italian dream come true.Despite the unexpected turn of events, it seems being stuck in Italy hasn’t been such a negative experience after all.And the virus crisis has made them appreciate even more the beauty of Italy’s rural villages — so much so that some are looking to invest in more cheap properties.

Losing track

Mussomeli is located on a hilltop in Sicily.Salvatore Catalano, Comune MussolemiMiami-based artist Alvaro Solorzano is currently stuck in Mussomeli, a picturesque town in the southern island of Sicily where last year he purchased two cheap properties — one of them costing just one euro, or a little over a dollar.In March he arrived with his wife, son and son’s girlfriend to start renovating the houses. The other three headed back to Miami and Solorzano was due to follow them a couple of weeks later, but then his flight was canceled.”I lost track of time. We came here together and I ended up living the quarantine in Mussomeli all by myself, without any furniture just a bed and TV, and nobody to talk to,” he tells CNN. “That was the hardest thing. Had my wife or son been with me, it would have been different.”One of Solorzano’s properties in Mussomeli.Solorzano had been staying in a B&B, but when this closed because of Covid-19 restrictions, he was forced to move into the less dilapidated of his two properties, which was just about habitable.Since then, he’s been killing time by watching TV, learning Italian, going to the supermarket (“the nicest part of the day”) and talking on the phone with his family. Little by little, he’s been making the most out of the situation by repairing and painting the walls of the house.”I did little things but it helped me use time, so when my son and his girlfriend come back their home will be ready,” he says. “Luckily the hardware store in town has always been open and I’m so glad we bought two properties and not just the one euro house as it has no water nor electricity.”Related content Which European countries are opening for summer.

Local heroes

Alvaro Solorzano from Miami says local residents have made his enforced stay in Mussomeli a pleasant experience.Maurizio Di Maria, Comune MussomeliDespite an initial hardship, he says his new neighbors helped him throughout the ordeal.”The first two nights were terrible,” he says. “It was cold, I slept with my jacket on top of my pajamas but then the neighbors were great. I can’t complain. They gave me heaters and even offered blankets, which I had, but I could use their internet.””They kept checking in on me, brought me tons of food for Easter which took me three days to eat. I don’t know what I would have done without them.”Solorzano was brought Easter cakes by his neighbors.Mussomeli, surrounded by honeysuckle and eucalyptus trees, boasts one of Italy’s most breathtaking fortresses, known as the Enchanted Castle, which clings like a spider on a pointed rock.The fertile green farmland is dotted with old sulfur mines, sanctuaries, Roman necropolises and traces of primitive settlements.The town’s name means “Hill of Honey” in Latin.But to Solorzano the sweetest attractions of the place are its welcoming residents.”They’re wonderful, I know everyone by name,” he says. “There’s Mario, the guy who delivers the bread. I’ve got no words to describe how grateful I am of having them and don’t know how I could ever repay them for all they did.”Initially tough restrictions have now eased in Italy, allowing him to walk around, but at first it was hard, he admits, as there was nothing to do. “It was terrible, just staying at home, I felt like being in jail sometimes.”Related content Italian hermit living alone on an island says self-isolation is the ultimate journey

Property empire

Solorzano says he now knows everyone by name.Now he relishes being able to chat to locals and stroll to Mussomeli’s viewpoint, where he can sit on a bench and enjoy fresh air and mountain panoramas.As a painter, Solorzano says he would’ve loved doing some artwork, but due to the lockdown he couldn’t find a pallet or a canvas.Solorzano wants to buy another property in Mussomeli.Maurizio Di Maria, Comune Mussomeli”I’m working hard to try to get back home, but a flight which I recently booked has also been canceled so I really don’t know when I will return to the States,” he says. “I want to be back before Father’s Day in June. I’ve already missed so many festivities I could have celebrated with my family.”Solorzano’s Sicilian quarantine has made him love Mussomeli even more. The ordeal, instead of having killed enthusiasm for his one euro house adventure, has fueled a desire to purchase a third abandoned building.”I love this town and the people, even if they don’t know you, they help you out. It’s like being in another world. You don’t get this in the States”.Related content What happened when I bought a hotel by mistake

Trapped in Tuscany

Brazilian Douglas Roque, pictured here with his cousin, has been stuck in Tuscany during Italy’s lockdown.Douglas RoqueBrazilian businessman Douglas Roque is another dilapidated home purchaser whose enthusiasm for starting a new life has been undimmed by coronavirus.Roque was in Fabbriche di Vergemoli, Tuscany, overseeing the renovation of a one euro farm dwelling when lockdown struck and his flight back home was canceled.Together with his Brazilian-Italian friend Alberto Da Lio, both from Sao Paulo, the two were also in town to oversee the potential purchase of an entire abandoned area for other Brazilian buyers.Had they not been able to stay at Da Lio’s family house near Venice, with hotels in Vergemoli shut and the abandoned dwelling totally uninhabitable, they would have had nowhere to go, says Roque.Roque, on the right, is pictured here with Fabbriche di Vergermoli mayor, Michele Giannini.Douglas RoqueFabbriche di Vergemoli is a cluster of hamlets scattered in the UNESCO-listed protected forest of the Apuan Alps. The area is dotted with ruins of abandoned miners’ dwellings overrun by vegetation. Many areas can be reached only by foot.Roque’s dilapidated three-story farm, which comes with a chestnut cellar and forgotten old wine barrels, is located in the neighborhood of Dogana, where a pristine stream runs below an ancient, picturesque bridge.”I was about to start the restyle and then everything was blocked,” says Roque. “It was terrible, our return flight was canceled and we had issues with the Brazilian consulate.”I came here in February to pursue the renovation of my house, all the paperwork was done, I was ready to go but couldn’t move on with it. And my family is in Brazil, where virus cases have been increasing. I’m worried for them and they’re worried for me.”Related content You can still buy $1 homes all over Italy

Piece of perfection

Roque is also trying to purchase other houses in the villages for fellow Brazilians.Courtesy Douglas RoqueThe two friends also had to deal with the consequences of a prolonged stay: the hassle of credit card monthly limits and seasonal clothing changes as they arrived in winter and it is now almost spring (luckily, they found some lighter gafrments at Da Lio’s).While he waits for global air traffic to resume, Roque’s anxious to set foot again in Vergemoli as soon as Italian authorities lift restrictions on moving between regions — a move expected in early June.”All this time I’ve been trying to work on my project online, contacting construction companies and liaising with other Brazilian buyers, friends and relatives interested in buying property in Vergemoli but who can’t travel now. I hope to finalize everything soon.”Roque says he picked Vergemoli of all places in Italy to buy a one euro house because, despite all that’s happened, it remains a dream destination.”Tuscany is a marvelous region and major historical and artistic cities are nearby. It’s the perfect spot.”

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«Foreigners – declares councillor Nigrelli – have been enchanted by the orography of our territory. Mussomeli is located 700m above sea level. Almost every house in our old town enjoys a lovely view. There is no shortage of sunshine: it only rains 20 days a year and the panorama is unique. … Mussomeli is one of the safest cities in Italy. No robberies have been reported for years, thanks to a sophisticated video surveillance system and the presence of numerous police forces patrolling the city. “

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)
Supported by Council Member Toti Negrelli, with the aim of recovering the old town, the municipality of Mussomeli joins the project 1 Euro Houses, with the sale of old uninhabited houses in the historical center at the Symbolic price of 1 euro. With this move, Councillor Nigrelli intends to give impetus to local productive activities. The tourist sector is also expected to benefit from the project.


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