2021 Archives - Page 23 of 35

“New Jersey: License Endorsement in the 10th circle of Hell”

April 23, 2021 By Jasmine George, FSU '24

“Since covid, the DMV has been a nightmare experience especially in New Jersey. It wasn’t until November that the MVC decided that appointments might be better than waiting in line for 3 hours at 5 AM

“I’ve been to the DMV 6 times since May to get my permit / license. I’ve done everything including a BRC to slip the road test so that I could expedite getting my endorsement.

“After making an appointment in November (for my sixth trip) I showed up with all of my documentation this Saturday to finally get it done. I double checked all my paperwork. I brought extra paperwork so I could also get my REAL ID (my license is expiring in a month and my moto permit expires this month).

“I go in at my appointment I ACE the test (I actually already took it before but they literally LOST my score) and I flash my BRC cert from the summer to get my endorsement but despite showing this multiple times before to DMV folks, this woman today told me the small credit card sizes cert was it enough, I needed a larger form (examiners verification) to get my endorsement. I called my BRC office and they had no idea what the form is and have never issued one.

“Does god hate me? Am I am idiot? Should I just sell my bike?” –u/universal_ubiquity, Reddit, 2021

Read the full thread here.

My Phone Demon Made Me Buy…

April 15, 2021 By Professor Arielle Saiber

“I’m not sure at what point I said ‘I’d love to be swaddled in an adult baby blanket’ loud enough for the ad-targeting demon in my iPhone to hear me, but like Virgil leading me through the nine rings of Amazon hell, I was ultimately guided down to adult baby blanket Paradiso. Now that I own this organic cotton muslin gauzy piece of heaven, I need to pass on its cozy ways.” –Marissa Rosenblum, Refinery29, April 8, 2021

Contributed by Kate McKee (Bowdoin, ’22)

Dante for Children and for Curious Parents (2021)

April 15, 2021 By Professor Arielle Saiber

Pia de’ Tolomei speaking with Dante and Virgil in Purg. 5

“This is a tweet from Federico Corradini, illustrator, on his new children’s adaptation of Purgatorio in the series Dante per bambini e per genitori curiosi, illustrated for Silvia Baroncelli, author. The first book in the series, Inferno, was published earlier this year. The series is for sale on Amazon (I imagine Paradiso is forthcoming!).” –Kate McKee (Bowdoin, ’22)

Lil Nas X, “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)”

April 14, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

The music video for Lil Nas X’s “Montero (Call Me By Your Name)” has drawn many comparisons to Dante’s Inferno for its depiction of the singer’s descent to hell (and eventual lap dance of Satan). Here are a few quotes from media outlets:

“2021 is here, purgatory is (almost) over, and Lil Nas X is our Dante.” –Halle Keifer for Vulture

“Artists have been imagining trips to hell for hundreds of years without anyone raising too much fuss, but then Dante wasn’t a gay black pop star. Also, as far as anyone knows, Dante didn’t promote the Divine Comedy by selling a limited-edition sneaker made with human blood, which is the approach Lil Nas X has been taking with ‘Montero.’ On Friday, news broke that Lil Nas X and MSCHF had collaborated on ‘Satan Shoes,’ a limited release of modified Nike Air Maxes decorated with pentagrams and a reference to Luke 10:18 (‘And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.’) They’re only making 666 individually numbered pairs of shoes, and each one is made with a drop of real human blood. Not surprisingly, Nike wants everyone to know they had nothing to do with any of this.” –Matthew Dessem in Slate

“In the ‘Montero’ video, Lil Nas X journeys from Garden of Eden to Dante’s inferno by sliding down a stripper pole (truly, twigs is correct in calling it iconic) [. . .].” –Meagan Fredette for W Magazine

Watch the video on YouTube (accessed April 14, 2021)

“Steal this Poem”: Dennis Looney and Arielle Saiber on Inf. 24 for “Canto per Canto”

April 14, 2021 By Professor Elizabeth Coggeshall

As part of the Dante Society of America’s Canto per Canto series, Arielle Saiber (founder of Dante Today) speaks with Dennis Looney (author of, among other notable works, Freedom Readers: The African American Reception of Dante Alighieri and the Divine Comedy) on the 24th canto of Inferno, the first of two cantos on theft in the Malebolge.

Watch or listen to the video of “Inferno 24: Steal this Poem” here.

Canto per Canto: Conversations with Dante in Our Time is a collaborative initiative between New York University’s Department of Italian Studies and Casa Italiana Zerilli-Marimò, and the Dante Society of America. The aim is to produce podcast conversations about all 100 cantos of the Divine Comedy, to be completed within the seventh centenary of Dante’s death in 2021.

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