Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture
The party game Cards Against Humanity included a black card in its third expansion pack that reads, “In the seventh circle of Hell, sinners must endure ____________ for all eternity.” The game was first made available in 2011, and the third expansion pack was issued in 2013.
Contributed by Isabelle Gurtler (The Bolles School ’22)
Dante’s Inferno Panini & Pizza can be found in Toronto, Canada. See their website (including photos and complete menu, which is full of Dante-related references and puns) here.
“Heavenly Legal had issued a Malfunction Recall and she was a fallen angel sent from below to ensure poor souls like mine found their way into the tenth circle of Hell in an orderly fashion. ‘I thought there were only nine circles down there,’ I objected. ‘We had to add one for all those who’ve lived their lives as if they were going to live forever.'” —Carlos Ruiz Zafón, Chipotle’s The Cultivating Thought Author Series
Photo courtesy of Crystal on Tumblr, who also provides a full transcript of Carlos’ story.
“Un’altra attività torna nel centro storico dell’Aquila. Sabato 25 agosto, alle 19, in via dell’Arcivescovado 25, riaprirà al pubblico, in una veste inedita e accattivante, la caffetteria ristorante il “Girone dei golosi”. Il locale e i relativi arredi sono stati progettati e realizzati interamente da artisti abruzzesi.
[. . .]
Il Girone dei golosi si presenta come un caffè artistico, con la presenza di quattro quadri appositamente realizzati dall’artista Srek (Stefano Cencioni), ispirati al Girone dei Golosi, nel Sesto canto dell’Inferno di Dante dove i dannati, sommersi dalla fanghiglia, vengono graffiati da Cerbero, mostro a tre teste.” — L’Aquila, Abruzzo News, August 23, 2018
Flyer advertising “Pedro’s Inferno” in San Pedro, Belize (July 2019). Note that the flyer borrows the “Inferno” logo from the Electronic Arts video game.
“Hell, Dante tells us, has nine circles, each one reserved for souls guilty of particular sins. The greedy, for example, go to the Third Circle, while heretics are flung down into the Fourth. If you’ve lived a lustful life, full of debauchery and fornication, you will find yourself in the second circle, writhing and naked with millions of other lustful souls who — wait, how exactly is that a punishment? According to Dante, the worst Circles of Hell are reserved for fraudsters and traitors, suggesting that he’d had an unfortunate disagreement with his publisher over royalties. But the great Italian fell short in his demonic visions, because there is another Circle of Hell: the Tenth. It is a place of infinite suffering and utter despair, echoing with the wailing of the damned. It is a movie theatre called Cinepolis Junior.” […] –Tom Eaton, Rand Daily Mail, March 14, 2017
“Grocery shopping with toddlers isn’t that much fun to begin with, but throw some -10ºF temperatures into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for hell on earth. Frigid, snowy weather on grocery day is almost enough to convince me we’ll somehow manage to survive on a few cans of button mushrooms and a jar of olives until the next week.
“Besides trying to corral tiny people who have mastered the art of ‘walking’ but not so much the art of ‘walking without careening into every other person/cart/carefully laid out pyramid of soup cans in the store’, the main problem with winter grocery shopping with small children is that it presents a series of obnoxious choices.” […] –Aimee Ogden, Mommyish, February 23, 2015
“New York’s Dante reached cocktail paradise tonight when it was named World’s Best Bar at the 2019 Spirited Awards in New Orleans during this year’s Tales of the Cocktail. The bar, which opened in 2015 in what was once a famous Greenwich Village coffee house, Caffe Dante, was also named Best American Restaurant Bar for the second time in three years (which, under the rules of the Spirited Awards, means it is now retired from the the category). Among the American bars, Dante beat out local competitor Gramercy Tavern, Houston’s Better Luck Tomorrow, and Louisville’s Silver Dollar.
“The awards ceremony was introduced by Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor Bryan Cranston, who just launched a mezcal called Dos Hombres with his Breaking Bad costar Aaron Paul. ‘People suggested we call it Methcal,’ Cranston joked in his welcoming remarks. Earlier in the week, the two actors were slinging drinks at New Orleans’ iconic Napoleon House and Cranston, who admitted how much more respect he now has for bartenders, confessed that he endured two non-lethal injuries during his three-hour shift—cuts on his hands from the cocktail shakers.” […] –Karla Alindahao, Forbes, July 20, 2019
“It’s horses like Stradivarius that help to keep Frankie Dettori young – and racegoers demanding a flying dismount after every big race success.
“Now 47, and the fifth winning-most Flat jockey of all-time, no one is better on the big stage and, once again, he did not disappoint on the Knavesmire.
“And Dettori harbours hopes of landing the Ascot Gold Cup after conjuring a winning tune out of Stradivarius in yesterday’s Yorkshire Cup.
“The final day highlight of York’s Dante meeting, Dettori treated his opponents with near contempt as he won this prestigious prize for a fifth time.” […] –Tom Richmond, Yorkshire Post, May 18, 2018
