Three from Italy

On our recent trip I was reminded how much I love train travel. The reminder happened quickly, about an hour after our departure from Letojanni, when the train was loaded onto a ferry for the short hop across the Strait of Messina to the Italian mainland. I know of no other place that does that.

Ferrying the train across the Strait of Messina, Sicily 2023

But beyond the uniqueness of trains on boats, travel by rail offers many amenities, especially compared to airplanes. Trains are comfortable, spacious really, easy to move around in. The countryside is immediate and available, so close it feels touchable - the Tyrrhenian Sea, Vesuvius, gritty Naples. And your fellow passengers are the same, close, willing to engage, share pictures of their children and ours with them. Ultimately, train travel becomes a welcome part of the journey, a story in itself - not another airport to dread with the crowds, the rush, the tension, so cramped you can barely cross your legs. Modern trains are fast, efficient but they feel slow and relaxed.

Leaving Sicily, 10/2023

Trains lull me. They place me in an unfamiliar dream where my vision abstracts to a mix of reality and fiction. I doze. I wake. I make a picture. I read. I walk to the club car and get an espresso. I make another picture, this one stranger than the last. I could do this forever.

Leaving Naples for Rome, 10/23.

https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds

The Little Worlds fundraiser is still under way. I want to thank the people who have generously contributed so far. We are closer to our goal of $35,000 than we were but still have a ways to go. So, if you’re inclined to purchase the book, or want to take advantage of one of the offered rewards, I’d encourage pre-ordering at the link below. Pre-order demand is a good indicator to the publisher about the number of books to print.Thank you for your interest.
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Home health nurse examining patient, George Roberts, in his home, Big Pine, 1984.

from Little Worlds, 1984
There is some work close to home. I make photographs for a story on rural health care with my friend Millie for a Durham-based journal, Southern Exposure. I spend a couple of days with a home health nurse with the Hot Springs Health Program as she travels the county, meeting with patients who are unable to leave home. It’s an innovative program and serves as a model for rural health care delivery around the country. For county residents it’s made excellent and dependable care available without having to drive to Asheville or east Tennessee.

Little Worlds

Making molasses at Eldon Henderson’s House, Big Pine, 1978.

We volunteer to help our new neighbors make sorghum syrup and spend a long day cutting cane with tobacco knives, stripping the fodder and seed heads from the stalk, and then grinding the stalks through a mill that is powered by a horse. The thin, greenish juice is poured into a long, shallow pan and cooked for hours, changing the liquid into a thick amber syrup. The process goes on into the night. We meet new people—two of them turn out to be Laura’s relatives. Her cousin Nina suggests we take a piece of the ground stalk, dip it in the cook- ing syrup, and suck it dry. That overpowering sweetness, getting to know new people, and a photograph I make, are the best parts of the day.
- from Little Worlds

Little Worlds Fundraiser
https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds

Moonflowers, PawPaw.

Our nights are dark and quiet, except for the pair of screech owls calling from either end of the holler or coyotes on top of the mountain yearning for goat. The sky’s alive with stars, and when the moon is full the forest dances with shadows and shapes the daylight doesn’t know. Sometimes, when the baby is asleep, Leslie and I lie in the yard wrapped in a blanket, smoking and sipping, waiting for comets, cuddling in the comfort of dusky light.
- from Little Worlds

LITTLE WORLDS FUNDRAISER

https://www.robamberg.com/blog/2023/8/12/little-worlds-the-book

Little Worlds, The Book - Fundraiser

The truck stopped and the stillness woke the boy. They'd been driving all night, one of many dark-of-the-moon trips over the last few weeks, avoiding people, stealing fuel when they could find it to steal, sleeping during the day after hiding the truck, a pistol tucked in the floorboard.

"Where are we, Papa?" Wright asked.

Frank said nothing. He was weary from the road and wary of what they might find. Had he decided right? Would they be safe in this surreal and desolate landscape? Could they survive here? He'd seen outlines of collapsing houses and barns as he drove but no signs of life--no lights, no smoke, nothing stirring. He wondered, Are we the only ones?

"We can't drive any farther," he said to the boy. "The road is blocked, and it looks like the bridge is caved in. I'll tell you about this place as we walk.”

Thus begins Little Worlds, Rob Amberg's third volume in a trilogy of books from Madison County, in the mountains of western North Carolina. 

The first two books of the trilogy - Sodom Laurel Album and The New Road - document through photographs, oral history and narrative writing a traditional agrarian lifestyle and community and its evolution brought on by the construction of a new superhighway, improved access to the outside world, and a changing demographic. 

Little Worlds continues this story of change in Madison County but with a new twist. In many ways it is a traditional documentary photography book that utilizes photographs and journal entries to tell a factual story about aspects of life in Madison County over the last fifty years. But it’s the inclusion of speculative fiction, an imaginative look to a dystopian universe fifty years in the future through eyes from the past that brings the book its innovative energy. 

Writers and photographers shy away from mixing documentary and fiction and Little Worlds is clearly a hybrid. It began as a long-running bedtime story I was telling my children and has grown into a unique volume that includes over 150 color and black/white photographs intertwined with a 62,000 word novel. The first edition will be 1,000 copies.

Because of the unique nature of this book, I am choosing to self-publish. It has been edited by noted editor Diana Stoll and designed by Bonnie Campbell, former lead designer at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Expected publication date is spring, 2024.

I am now fundraising for the book and this is the time to be an early supporter of Little Worlds. Rewards are available for different levels of support ranging from: a signed copy of Little Worlds, postcards, individual photographs, limited edition prints and three portfolios of images from the book.

Thank you for your consideration of this long-awaited project. I hope you’ll join me and Frank and Wright on our journey to Little Worlds.

Rewards

---

Tier 1

A signed copy of the book Little Worlds.
$65, tax and shipping included

Quantity:

Add to cart

---

Tier 2

A signed copy of the book Little Worlds and
five postcards from the book.
$91, tax and shipping included

Quantity:

Add to cart

---

Tier 3

A signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book and
one signed 8.5” x 11” archival pigment, open edition print chosen from these pages.
$145, tax and shipping included

For example, chose this or any single image from these rewards for your support of Little Worlds.

Quantity:

Add to cart

---

Tier 4

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book,
and one signed 13” x 19” limited edition print, chosen from the book,
printed on Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase. Edition of 10.
Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$750, tax and shipping included

For example, chose this or any single image from these rewards for your support of Little Worlds.

Quantity:

Add to cart

---

Tier 5

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book, and
one 7-print portfolio titled Portraits from Little Worlds. The images are
printed on 8.5” x 11” Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase.
Edition of 10. Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$2,625, tax and shipping included

Quantity:

Add to cart

---

Tier 6

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book, and
One 7-print portfolio titled Land from Little Worlds. The color images are
printed on 13” x 19” Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase.
Edition of 10. Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$3,850, tax and shipping included

Quantity:

Add to cart

---

Tier 7

Signed copy of Little Worlds, five postcards from the book, and
one 7-print portfolio titled Life from Little Worlds. The b/w images are
printed on 13” x 19” Hahnemuhle bamboo paper, presented in a slipcase.
Edition of 10. Donor will have their name in the book if ordered before 1/15/24.
$3,850, tax and shipping included

Quantity:

Add to cart

Thank you for your support. - Rob

Thoughts on Sicily Part 1

Sunrise, Letojanni, Sicily, 10/23

We were tired when we got to the Hotel in Letojanni after a long, red-eye flight from Asheville, via Philadelphia, followed by a shorter flight from Rome to Catania, and a shorter still ride from the airport. I don’t remember much after that. I’m sure we ate, probably with Titus and Maureen, maybe at Ciao Ciao.

I woke up early, well before first light and went out on our balcony. The town was quiet except for an occasional car or motorcycle. I dressed and went out, in search of a caffe’ doppia and a chocolate croissant. It becomes a morning ritual and I settle into a small bakery, Il Gabbiano. I sit among old Sicilian men, drinking espresso and smoking tobacco. I watch them as they laugh and tell stories, starting their days, their own ritual. I see something of them in me and can place myself in that picture.

Morning coffee.

We went to the beach every day. By that time I had given up worrying about the get together and party and decided to relax and enjoy myself. Letting go is not my strongest trait, but relax we did. Bruschetta and wine on the beach. Crystal clear water at the perfect temp. Two women walking the beach all day, every day, offering massages and umbrellas to shade us from the Mediterranean sun. It was idyllic, bordering on decadent, but lovely, fun.

Kate seemed to meet everyone on the beach. At one point she walked me over to these two bronzed women who were from Frankfurt and another couple from Marin County, CA., a former Economics professor, my worst subject in college.

Letojanni, Sicily

Caution, potter at play, Letojanni, Sicily, 10/23

Two women from Germany on the beach, Letojanni, Sicily, 10/23.

Food played a role in everything we did. Two hour lunches became the rule. Dinners with twenty that lasted until midnight. And the fish. Mussels, prawns, redfish, swordfish, the best wine, and inexpensive, all. Pasta alla norma, pasta alla vongole were my two favorites. The flaming salt-encrusted fish blended nicely with a Sicilian Dance troupe.

All four photographs from Nino’s restaurant in Letojanni, Sicily, October 2023.

We had the party. I would encourage everyone to check out Bill Mosher’s site, BillyBaba’s Wanderings @ < https://billybaba.com/ >. Go to his October 14 entry for a nice look at the party and follow his site. Bill is a truly amazing 85 year old who travels incessantly. He’s a perceptive observer.

The party, the whole week really, was equally affirming, humbling and unsettling for me. Emotionally and physically draining. The idea of having a birthday party for yourself, and staging it 4,000 miles away in a foreign country, is more than a little audacious and narcissistic. The fact that over 70 people came, both family and friends, is cause for reflection, a look back.

This party was to celebrate my 75th birthday and I wanted to have it at my maternal grandfather’s birthplace in Sicily. My cousin owns a hotel in a small town there and we booked much of it for the party. My grandfather left Sicily with his brother when he was sixteen. He never made it home again and never saw his family after leaving. For me, there was a certain symbolism in being in Sicily. Our grandfather’s three grandsons returning to family ground with our children and grandchildren. Letting him know that while he couldn’t make it back to his family and homeland, we would do it for him.

With the recent passing of my cousin Dolores, I am the oldest member of the American side of our Sicilian family, the Galeanos; I am the patriarch, so to speak. That knowledge heightened my desire to link with the past and offer that same link to other, younger family members.

The Catholic in me asks, “what have I done to deserve this bounty?” I went to Mass the day after the party, my first time in many, many years. Mass is a good place for self doubt and I spent much of the service thinking about the many masses I had attended when I was younger and the effect it had on my life, much of it not positive. Still, I remembered much of the Latin liturgy from my days as an altar boy and the ritual itself was oddly comforting, both familiar and foreign. My cousin once told me that everyone in Italy is Catholic but few people pay attention to its rules.

After mass we went to the cemetery and visited the family crypt that houses our great-grandparent’s remains. Caterina Cicciu and Vincenzo Galeano.

My great-grandparents crypt, Letojanni, Sicily, 2005.

Family members looking at the family crypt, Letojanni, Sicily, October 2023.

My cousin Enzo Costantino talking about different family members who had died, Letojanni, Sicily, October, 2023.

Joey Galeano and Audrey DiPiazza at their great, great, great grandparent’s crypt, October, 2023.

Vincent Galeano standing under his great great grandfather’s crypt, Vincenzo Galeano, Letojanni, Sicily, October, 2023.

From the left, Enzo Costantino, our Sicilian cousin, my brother Mark, Me, and our cousin, Joe Galeano from Maryland. In Letojanni, Sicily, October, 2023. Photo by Kate Amberg

My mother and maybe my grandmother would tell me stories about my grandfather’s family in Sicily. Much of the reason he and his brother left Sicily was because of the rampant poverty gripping the island and the entire south of Italy. Mom remembered while growing up her parents would send care packages back to the old country, much like all immigrant families do. Money, clothing, shoes, towels, sheets. I think this is part of our family’s memory, a link that crosses thousands of miles and five generations.

Thank you Enzo and Margie. You welcomed our entire group and treated us like family. I’m glad you are in our lives.

Janni the horse, Letojanni, Sicily, October, 2023

Little Worlds - The Book

From the book, Little Worlds

Frank would often return from his treks with a rabbit or turkey they would turn into a stew. He would speak of seeing abandoned houses and barns with no signs of life, shrouded with trees and vines, much like their house had been when they first arrived.

One day, he returned late, worried, saying he had seen more footprints. “There were three or four people, and I followed the tracks to an old house way back in the woods. Someone had been living there. Inside, the cabin was ransacked. I don’t know what they were looking for. There was a small bedroom off the main room and that’s where I found the bodies. Two old people, shot dead, their bodies partially eaten. I buried them behind the house.”

Little Worlds - The Book, from 1983

-from Little Worlds

We rent an old warehouse space on the third floor of a building across from the courthouse. Our large open room is filthy and in need of rewiring and plumbing. There’s no heat or cooling. The county jail is right behind us, and there’s a lawyer on the floor below us and a game room below him.

Marshall is small, contained on one side by the river and the other side by a mountain. There are people on the street during the day: shopping, banking, brokering real estate, or sitting on the benches in front of the courthouse. One of Laura’s cousins owns a home-furnishings store here. There is a library, and the librarian has asked me to hang my pictures in the front window.

But the town has been on a downhill slide since it was bypassed by a new road in the late 1960s. Shuttered buildings are becoming more prevalent, and ours is the first new business in town in many years. Old people talk about the time before the bypass and I-40, when the town was on the most direct route between Asheville and Knoxville. Then, it was so busy there wasn’t room on the sidewalk for everyone. For me, it’s funny and unsettling to think about trying to figure out my life in a dying town.

Little Worlds - The Book, from 1981

I agree to help a neighbor pick tomatoes. I’ll be minimally paid, but I’m mainly
working for the community connection and the bond it creates. I need to know I can do the work. Also, I can take all the tomatoes I want, and Laura and I can dozens of quarts for the winter.

Pickin’ maters is a hot and dirty job. The tomatoes are covered with a fine
chemical dust that soon coats my hands and starts me sneezing and coughing and itching. It takes the morning for six of us to pick the acre of fruit. The man’s wife fixes dinner for all of us, and we spend the afternoon cleaning and packing the tomatoes.

Little Worlds - The Book

The next morning, after eating and banking the fire, Frank and Wright started down the driveway, wanting to follow their memories of footprints and fleeting smoke. “I’ve been avoiding this,” Frank said. “But we need to know who’s out there. Bring your bag and some food. No telling how long we’ll be gone.”

The road was still a tangle. The truck was still sitting where they had left it, but they were reminded of the need to deal with it. The footprints had washed away with recent rains, but their stone piling was intact. Standing next to it was a shorter piling, an invitation, a warning, a sign of something. They followed their recollections to a narrow opening, shielded from view by a thatch of thick vine and brush. It was barely a trail, not often used, but clear in its direction. Level ground at first, the path soon became a steady incline with outcroppings of rock lining it.

Little Worlds - The Book from 1974

Now I’m staying with new friends on their farm north of Asheville. I agree to help with their tobacco and pepper crops in exchange for a dry place in their tobacco-casing house. I have no farm skills and feel pretty useless. I’m convinced my body isn’t made for hard physical work, and I do less than my share.

I do make a couple of nice pictures, one a photograph of Mac plowing with his mule that I especially like. But the reality is I’m floundering and very unsettled. I have hardly enough money for film.

Little Worlds - The Book

“I don’t know what to do about the truck,” Frank said as they walked down the
road to gather the last of their stuff. “It will take forever to get it to the house, and
it won’t do us much good if we can’t find fuel. I’m worried someone will see it and
make their way up to our place.”

As they approached the truck, Wright was the first to notice the footprints in
the rain-softened earth. They came from the opposite direction, one they hadn’t
explored. “Who do you think this is?” he asked nervously.

“I don’t know,” Frank answered. “Could be most anyone. Whoever it is, he
knows we’re here. All the more reason to carry one of those pistols when we’re
away from the camp. One thing though, he didn’t bother anything, just had a look
around. That tells us something.”

Sicily and Italy - A Visit with My Grandparents

Joe Galeano

Jenny Lozupone Galeano

I’m leaving for Sicily and Italy soon. The catalyst, of sorts, is to celebrate my 75th birthday although this will happen almost ten months after my actual birthday. We will party at my cousin’s hotel in Letojanni, Sicily.

My true motivations for this gathering are twofold: One, to thank the people in attendance who have all played instrumental roles in my life. Some more than others, some for longer periods of time, all have influenced me. Secondly, I want to spend more time with my two Italian grandparents - Joe Galeano from Lentini, Sicily, and Jenny Lozupone from Gioia del Colle, Italy. Both of them migrated to the United States at early ages and never saw their hometowns again. I’m excited to visit for them.

Little Worlds - The Book

The truck stopped and the stillness woke the boy. They'd been driving all night, one of many dark-of-the-moon trips over the last few weeks, avoiding people, stealing fuel when they could find it to steal, sleeping during the day after hiding the truck, a pistol tucked in the floorboard.

"Where are we, Papa?" Wright asked.

Frank said nothing. He was weary from the road and wary of what they might find. Had he decided right? Would they be safe in this surreal and desolate landscape? Could they survive here? He'd seen outlines of collapsing houses and barns as he drove but no signs of life--no lights, no smoke, nothing stirring. He wondered, Are we the only ones?

"We can't drive any farther," he said to the boy. "The road is blocked, and it looks like the bridge is caved in. I'll tell you about this place as we walk.”

Thus begins Little Worlds, Rob Amberg's third volume in a trilogy of books from Madison County, in the mountains of western North Carolina. 

The first two books of the trilogy - Sodom Laurel Album and The New Road - document through photographs, oral history and narrative writing a traditional agrarian lifestyle and community and its evolution brought on by the construction of a new superhighway, improved access to the outside world, and a changing demographic. 

Little Worlds continues this story of change in Madison County but with a new twist. In many ways it is a traditional documentary photography book that utilizes photographs and journal entries to tell a factual story about aspects of life in Madison County over the last fifty years. But it’s the inclusion of speculative fiction, an imaginative look to a dystopian universe fifty years in the future through eyes from the past that brings the book its innovative energy. 

Writers and photographers shy away from mixing documentary and fiction and Little Worlds is clearly a hybrid. It began as a long-running bedtime story I was telling my children and has grown into a unique volume that includes over 150 color and black/white photographs intertwined with a 62,000 word novel. The first edition will be 1,000 copies.

Because of the unique nature of this book, I am choosing to self-publish. It has been edited by noted editor Diana Stoll and designed by Bonnie Campbell, former lead designer at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University. Expected publication date is spring, 2024.

A fundraising campaign is planned. In coming weeks you will have the opportunity to be an early supporter of Little Worlds. You will be able to order the book at a pre-publication price. Rewards will be available for different levels of support ranging from: a signed copy of Little Worlds, postcards, individual photographs, limited edition prints and three portfolios of images from the book. The campaign will open in December.

I hope you’ll join me and Frank and Wright on our journey to Little Worlds.

Little Worlds - Robbie's Summer, moving to Fall

On cool nights like the last, I cover myself in my Gram’s afghan. My grandmother, Jennie Lozupone Galeano, was an expert seamstress who at one time made suits for Franklin Roosevelt and robes for the justices of the Supreme Court. She was always making suits for her grandsons and dresses for her granddaughter’s First Communions. In her later years, she lived to be 97, her eyesight worsened and she shifted from fine stitchery to knitting. This was her first afghan and as her first grandson, I was the beneficiary.
Despite living in this country since she was six years old, she continued throughout her life to have trouble with certain English words. One of those words was “afghan.” So, when the time came for her to present me with this gift as I was leaving for college, she handed it to me saying, “Robbie, I want you to have this ‘african’ to keep you warm in the winter.”
Now, almost sixty years later, this knitted, wool african, dog holes not withstanding, continues to warm me on cold nights. And as I prepare for a trip back to her home town in Puglia, Italy, it’s the sound of her voice that will calm me as I walk through the streets that she last walked 117 years ago.

Jennie Lozupone Galeano, Silver Spring, Maryland, 1992.

Robbie's Summer--With the Indiana Nieces

Over the years we have seen less of my niece Sara and her two daughters. We don’t get to Indiana much since my sister Jean passed away and Sara has not ventured down to our place much either. So, it was a treat getting to know them all a little better.

We live very different lives and at one point LIly announced that she thought I was odd, I didn’t deny that but did ask for some clarification. We concluded that she had never met anyone quite like me, at which point, I said I could live with that definition. I’ve always maintained that in order to live here one must, at the very least, be eccentric. Odd is perhaps more extreme and I’m proud to claim that label.

My niece Sara McClusky and her two daughters, Lily (left) and Madeline.

We did get over to Josh Copus’s pottery and made a photograph under the weeping willow tree. This was about a week before half of the tree came down in a storm, which makes the photograph more than just a simple memory,

Robbie's Summer--in Oregon with Cousin Dave

Benny and I drove from Portland up to Mist, Oregon, to see my nephew David Sproull, his wife Aubrey, and their new baby Daisy Shay. Like us, they live in the woods. A great visit with a walk around the property, fantastic chicken lunch. and good times with the baby.

Robbie's Summer--In Oregon

Crossing the Willamette River, Portland, Oregon, 7/23.

Robbie's Summer --At Mal's, Marshall

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. I can mention the usual excuse suspects —I’ve been busy, I’ve been lazy, we’ve had lots of guests —and all are true enough. Mostly though i’ve been absorbed with a couple of major projects. My book, Little Worlds, is moving toward publication. And we are planning a trip to Sicily and Italy in the fall. Anyway, I’ve been away from posting. But I have been making some photographs, not many, but enough to give you an idead of Robbie’s Summer.

Ronald P. Knight and his Band playing at Mal’s Bar in Marshall, July 2023. A great evening.

Little Worlds--The Book

At long last Little Worlds, The Book, is moving forward in a significant way. It’s been a long time coming, but I’m proud to say we are heading toward a Spring 2024 publication date.

I will soon be in fundraising mode and the image below marks the beginning of that effort. My friend, Chris Akula Berry, is setting up to make a short video of me discussing the Book that will become part of an upcoming Kickstarter campaign.

I want to thank everyone for your past support of my work and hope you will help bring this latest project to fruition.