Entry tags:
Of Elections & Sicily
I Remunerated in solitude all day long and then in the evening did Zoom with Adrienne's campaign committee.
Adrienne hired a campaign manager! A very young campaign manager. Adrienne's paying the kid out of her own pocket—which I'm fairly certain is gonna get her in trouble with the Board of Elections. I mean, I guess one can make unlimited contributions to one's own campaign, but I think the way you do that is by writing checks to your campaign account and having the campaign treasurer include it in reports to the state as campaign income—not by writing a check from your own personal checking account.
But, of course—what do I know?
I thought I was only doing a placeholder website, but apparently, Adrienne is expecting me to do the whole website.
Buh????
Oh, well. As it turns out, the Shawangunk Dem site is not a WordPress site on an obsure Bulgarian server but a Squarespace website. So, I'll use Squarespace, too. How hard can that be?
In the last election for this county legislator slot, 1,216 votes were cast—and the Republicans won by a landslide.
But that means you can win with only 609 votes—(1,216/2) + 1.
"I know you don't want to hear this, Adrienne," I said at the end of the meeting. "But I think you need to disengage from the Democratic Party as much as you can and push Adrienne, the adorable, engaged local citizen who just loves, loves, ❤️LUV❤️s Wallkill! People around here hate Democrats. The goal is to get you elected, right? Once you're elected, you can do anything you want."
But this went over like a lead balloon.
###
After that, I watched the first episode of the new miniseries of The Leopard.
In Sicily, I actually visited Prince Lampedusa's 18th-century palace—he wrote The Leopard—presently inhabited by the Duke and Duchess of Palma. The Duke of Palma, in his youth, inspired the character of Tancredi. His much younger Duchess gives cooking lessons!
The palace was unbelievably beautiful with a huge garden—a thicket of container pots—atop what was once a seawall six-feet-across, protecting Palermo (unsuccessfully) from Norman raids:
The miniseries is not very good, but it's got passable cinematography, & I recognized so many of its locales from the time I spent in Sicily—such an amazingly enchanted & layered place, Sicily!—& I was filled with longing to go back...
Well. I am in the process of finding out whether my great-grandfather Emidio became an American citizen before my grandfather Daniel was born.
And if he didn't, I qualify for jus sanguinis.
So maybe I will be able to go back.
Meanwhile, here I am in the Duchess's kitchen making walnut pesto with a mezzaluna.
Adrienne hired a campaign manager! A very young campaign manager. Adrienne's paying the kid out of her own pocket—which I'm fairly certain is gonna get her in trouble with the Board of Elections. I mean, I guess one can make unlimited contributions to one's own campaign, but I think the way you do that is by writing checks to your campaign account and having the campaign treasurer include it in reports to the state as campaign income—not by writing a check from your own personal checking account.
But, of course—what do I know?
I thought I was only doing a placeholder website, but apparently, Adrienne is expecting me to do the whole website.
Buh????
Oh, well. As it turns out, the Shawangunk Dem site is not a WordPress site on an obsure Bulgarian server but a Squarespace website. So, I'll use Squarespace, too. How hard can that be?
In the last election for this county legislator slot, 1,216 votes were cast—and the Republicans won by a landslide.
But that means you can win with only 609 votes—(1,216/2) + 1.
"I know you don't want to hear this, Adrienne," I said at the end of the meeting. "But I think you need to disengage from the Democratic Party as much as you can and push Adrienne, the adorable, engaged local citizen who just loves, loves, ❤️LUV❤️s Wallkill! People around here hate Democrats. The goal is to get you elected, right? Once you're elected, you can do anything you want."
But this went over like a lead balloon.
###
After that, I watched the first episode of the new miniseries of The Leopard.
In Sicily, I actually visited Prince Lampedusa's 18th-century palace—he wrote The Leopard—presently inhabited by the Duke and Duchess of Palma. The Duke of Palma, in his youth, inspired the character of Tancredi. His much younger Duchess gives cooking lessons!
The palace was unbelievably beautiful with a huge garden—a thicket of container pots—atop what was once a seawall six-feet-across, protecting Palermo (unsuccessfully) from Norman raids:
The miniseries is not very good, but it's got passable cinematography, & I recognized so many of its locales from the time I spent in Sicily—such an amazingly enchanted & layered place, Sicily!—& I was filled with longing to go back...
Well. I am in the process of finding out whether my great-grandfather Emidio became an American citizen before my grandfather Daniel was born.
And if he didn't, I qualify for jus sanguinis.
So maybe I will be able to go back.
Meanwhile, here I am in the Duchess's kitchen making walnut pesto with a mezzaluna.
