Author Archives: John Cutrone

Jun 03 2026
6 Comments
Book of Days Calendar, Juneteenth

We Must Live as Brothers: Your June Book of Days

It’s June and here is your printable Convivio Book of Days calendar for the month. For this month of solstice and midsummer night’s dreaming and several saints’ days and Father’s Day and Bloomsday, we’ve opted to focus on Juneteenth, with a picture of a mural in Washington, DC, that was painted for Juneteenth in 2020. It’s a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: We must live together as brothers, or perish together as fools.

My hunch is the mural is no longer there. But if I’m wrong, please do let me know. The mural was on the Miller & Chevalier Building on what was then called Black Lives Matter Plaza. The two-block long street mural with the huge yellow letters is gone, of course; it was removed a little over a year ago.

In 2021, a year after this mural was painted, Juneteenth became a federal national holiday. Opal Lee, a woman born just a few days after my own mother (both Ms. Lee and my mom will be 100 years old this October), fought hard most all her life to get Juneteenth, once little known outside of Texas, recognized as a federal holiday. I remember being shocked when I heard the news. I have been shocked in different ways in the past year and a half, and find myself feeling that way far more often than I like.

I don’t know how Ms. Opal Lee feels about the state of the country as she approaches her 100th birthday this year, but she knows, better than anyone, I’m sure, how the road that brought the respect of Juneteenth to us was never an easy one. Sadly, we’ve had progress toward respect for all, and then it’s been walked back. Our history is a troubled one, and healing and respect are not part of the current plan, it would seem. With Juneteenth, though, we get another shot at making things right.

SHOP HAPPENINGS
The shop will be open this Sunday, June 7, from 11 AM to 4 PM, during our next workshop: I’ll be teaching a Case Bound Journal bookbinding workshop that day, and there are currently 2 seats left (perhaps you and a friend should sign up!). Our next Convivio Cookery workshop is my favorite pasta, Mambricoli, the following Saturday, June 13 (5 seats left). And we’re making plans for our Midsummer Solstice Market… it’s planned for Friday June 19 through Sunday June 21. We’ll have some good Midsummer Magic in store for you!

We also have a Juneteenth card in stock!

 

 

May 24 2026
5 Comments
Pentecost, Whitsunday

Wyt and Wysdome

It’s Pentecost Sunday, also known as Whitsunday. I’ve a quote for you for the day, but it’s in Middle English, which is the same form of English that Geoffrey Chaucer spoke and wrote when he put The Canterbury Tales down on paper in the late 14th century, and if you’ve ever read those tales, perhaps in high school English classes or in British Lit in college, you’ll remember well that Middle English takes a bit of getting accustomed to –– much like it took a bit of getting accustomed to my Aunt Lil’s accent and speech patterns when we’d go visit her in Augusta, Georgia. The quote is from John Mirk, an Augustinian canon who lived and preached in Shropshire, England, between 1382 and 1414, so… a contemporary of our Geoffrey Chaucer.

I’ll admit that’s a lot of set up for a short sentence, but here it is: Goode men and woymen, as ye known wele all, thys day ys called Whitsonday, for bycause that thee Holy Gost as thys day broth wyt and wysdome ynto all Cristes dyscyples. Or, in our contemporary tongue: “Good men and women, as you all well know, this day is called Whitsunday, because the Holy Ghost on this day brought wit and wisdom to all Christ’s disciples.”

Wit and wisdom. Two things that are in short supply these days, along with kindness and empathy and respect. (How did we get here? I have my own theories (they begin, innocently enough, with the sitcom Seinfeld and reach their apex––let’s hope so, anyway––with the people currently in charge in Washington), but we’re not here today, on this beautiful day in May, to discuss this.) Wit and wisdom in the form of inspiration and the Holy Spirit: this is what’s behind Whitsunday: Pentecost Sunday celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit to Christ’s disciples on the fiftieth and last day of the Easter season, which is where Pentecost takes its name, from a Greek word meaning “fiftieth.” And in the teachings of the Church, the Holy Spirit is the third person in the Holy Trinity, as in, “In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” as everyone in my family says when we cross ourselves, which, for some of us, can be several times each day.

John Mirk, as you may have noticed in the quote above––not to mention Geoffrey Chaucer, and everyone when I was a boy, and probably every English speaker in between (the Catholics, at least)––did not call this third person the Holy Spirit. We called it the Holy Ghost. The Latin languages use spirit (my Italian grandparents used to say, “Nel nome di Padre, del Figlio, e dello Spirito Santo”) and in recent decades there’s been a shift in that direction. But I rather miss the word ghost. Especially on Pentecost, when I always think of my most memorable Pentecost celebration, at the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Community in Maine. I won’t tell you about it here, because I feel like I tell you about it every Pentecost, every Whitsunday, and so I will pass today… but if you care to read about it, here is one of many chapters about this day where I describe it. It is very much a story of ghosts and spirits, of spiration: of gusts and ghosts and spirit and breath and respiration and inspiration. It is, I think, a beautiful story.

And with that, I will wish you a most inspiring day, and a most inspiring life, and a wish, for us all, for more wit and wisdom, more kindness and empathy, and more respect for each other.

SHOP HAPPENINGS
The shop is open today, Sunday, May 24. The first of our summer workshops, Botanical Monotypes, which is sold out, is happening this morning, but we’re open for eclectic shopping toward the end of the workshop and once it’s done, from 11 AM to 4 PM. Two weeks later, I’ll be teaching a Case Bound Journal bookbinding workshop on Sunday, June 7 (3 seats left) and our next Convivio Cookery workshop is my favorite pasta, Mambricoli, on Saturday, June 13 (5 seats left). And we’re making plans for our Midsummer Solstice Market… it’s planned for Friday June 19 through Sunday June 21. We’ll have some good Midsummer Magic in store for you!

 

Image: “Retabla of Holy Ghost” by E. Boyd. Woodcut with watercolor and colored pencil on paper, c. 1936 [Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons].

 

 

May 18 2026
6 Comments
Birthdays & Anniversaries, Transitions

A Century, or the Pinky Ring Club, Part 2

It’s my dad’s birthday today. He would’ve been 100 years old: a century. And so it feels especially fitting tonight to make a celebratory gin & tonic and a Porterhouse steak, which, when asked, he’d tell you was his favorite meal, but truth be told, Dad was always content with whatever was put in front of him. Be that as it may, to have Seth fire up the grill tonight is, I think, a good idea, in honor of Dad and this milestone year.

As I type this, I’m also wearing Dad’s pinky ring, the one that has his initials, JC, encased in diamonds. Same initials as mine, and though I am so not a pinky ring kind of guy, this, too, feels right tonight. It’s flashy, sparkly, a bit like my Dad, who, though he did not like to call attention to himself, used a pseudonym for wait times in restaurants (John Monte) and who did love himself some bling on his fingers. When he bought himself that pinky ring, Dad drove a 1960s Cadillac and he liked the finer things in life, as he always did––things he worked hard to attain. He was of the Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra age, and he would have fit in nicely shooting pool with them wearing this ring. I wore it at his funeral in 2017. I wish I could remember which New York cousin it was of mine who I think was wearing his own dad’s pinky ring then, too, and who said we were all members of the Pinky Ring Club now. This is all right by me.

I don’t know what Frank or Deano would have thought of me wearing this ring, but I imagine John Monte wearing it, leaning over the billiard table to get the eight ball in the far left pocket, the sparkle of the diamonds catching the light. The ice in Dean Martin’s glass would clink as he’d say, “Johnny: Nice ring.” And then he’d wonder what the C was for.

Happy Birthday, Dad. We all love you and miss you something crazy.

 

 

SHOP HAPPENINGS
Our series of early summer workshops begins next Sunday. First up is Botanical Monotypes with instructor Kim Spivey on Sunday, May 24 (2 seats left); then Case Bound Journal, a bookbinding workshop that I’m teaching, is on Sunday, June 7 (3 seats left); followed by our next Convivio Cookery workshop: Mambricoli, on Saturday, June 13 (5 seats left). Mambricoli! Another of Dad’s favorite meals.

The shop will be open next Sunday, too, during the Botanical Monotypes workshop and after it, until 4 PM. That’s Sunday, May 24. Come see us!

 

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