MUSIC: MAKING IT IN HOLLYWOOD
www. brazzil.com
1 $2
Year 9— No. 142— October 1997
CRIME: THE SEDUCTION OF THE RED LIGHT BANDIT
OPINION: DARCY RIBEIRO, THE BIG PRETENDER
FOOD: LESSON ONE ON LOWLY LOVELY MANIOC
BEHAVIOR:
ARE WE SEXMAD?
BRAZIL: HOW TO SPEAK BRAZILIAN
SPECIAL: ROMANCING IN RIO
SHORT STORY: TWO STEAMY BED TALES
ACOMPANHE EM DETALHES
o QUE ESTA ACONTECENDO NO BRASIL RECEBENDO GLOBO EM CASA OU NO ESCRITORIO. Ed i caio completa do GLOBO* a partir de apenas
$13.00 mensais** por dia da semana escolhido, corn entrega em qualquer cidade dos Estados Unidos e Canada.
LIGUE GRATIS 110JE MESMO PARA
1-800-985-8588 E FAA JA A SUA ASSINATURA
ANUNCIE NO BRASIL NO GLOBO Ligue 1-800-985-8588 para a Multimedia, Inc. e conheca as otimas oportunidades para aumentar seus neg6cios corn o Brasil e corn os brasileiros.
GLOBO
0 Brasil todos os dias corn voce
* Menos Classificados
** Promocdo por tempo limitado. Aproveite!
bMJ
bs.
is no
fully indexed and
available for research and reference in el ctronic format on CDROM
in Ethnic NewsWatch, a full text g neral reference
database of the publications of the ethnic minority and native press, dating back to 1990?
Comprehensive access to the ethnic ond minority press , in Americo.. newspapers, magazines, journals English and Spanish h5en. ....tolzrl . rectory
'-
Yob Yew* loy0 1.y. Ls °wry y hsyy ple.64 11. yyy. yyyy y yyy Limy towyy•••,••yotywy Loy I yo Mon rob lany Nyoro Nyyyty,by yyymy PY.A./.1.4yYs, Myy •••• Caoly Yoloy <Yard VW.
LI
SoftLine
I., 144.• b•hey• Mo.Yo, ,Yallierwor +•••• km. Yft v•YIR* /01.0
Irvormahon.Inc
WOA D is one of more than 180 newspapers, ma ines and journals reflecting th ethnic, minority and native ss (African American, ibbean, Arab and Middle E tern, Asian American, E opean/Eastern European, His anic, Jewish, Native American and ulti-Ethnic) that are now part of the E ic NewsWatch database.
For the first time Ethnic NewsWatch gives you fast and easy electronic a ess to more than 270,000 complete articles, editorials, columns, book, movie, and thea er reviews (and more) reflecting the ethnic diversity of America. And, with Ethnic News atch you have news, culture and history with the other sides of the stories.
NOW Ethnic NewsWatch is available in academic, public, school and government libraries nationwide.
, Ask forbal
and Ethnic NewsWatch on CDROM at your public
library as well as local high school and college libraries.
For more information, contact Softline Information, Inc. 20 Summer Street, Stamford, CT 06901 • (800) 524-7922 • BRAZZIL -OCTOBER 1997
(203) 975-8347 3
441110. .11110. 1eo. 41110.
SEABORNE
.01100. 1000. 4100.
NaiM .. INTERNATIONAL INCORPORATED
HAS THE BEST BRAZILIAN SERVICE FROM LOS ANGELES,— AND TO ARGENTINA AS WELL!
DREAMAKERSFI N 't PRODUCTIONS presents The Grand Opening Extravaganza of
"Call us before you ship. we can save you a lot of money'!
RHYTHMS OF THE WORLD
n -Nal°
Tuesday Nights at
t1 /41)340 5 P°I1/4
he cardeD j7
Ocean freight services from anywhere in the USA to anywhere in South America
de
KLEBER JORGE & MEIA NOITE TUESDAY OCTOBER 2 I BRAZILIAN BAHIA & SAMBA BEATS WITH THEIR TALENTED DANCERS
SERGIO MENDES & THE SAMBA GIRLS TUESDAY OCTOBER 28 THE MOST FAMOUS BRAZILIAN ARTIST THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN. A GALA NIGHT IN LOS ANGELES — RIO DE JANEIRO CARNIVAL RIGHT HERE IN L.A. A NIGHT YOU WILL NEVER FORGET
Regular sailings at competitive rates, local transportation, marine insurance, documentation, specialized packing and crating services.
MILA BAND & SAMBA SCHOOL TUESDAY NOVEMBER 4 INCREDIBLE BRAZILIAN BAHIA BEATS
For quotations, bookings and information contact:
SEABORNE INTERNATIONAL, INC. For Concert Information call Dreamakers Productions (310) 385-0513 For Dinner Reservations (213) 465-3336 Corner of La Brea and Hollywood Boulevard
11222, La Cienega Blvd., Suite 470, Los Angeles, CA 90304
Tel: (310) 216-4225 / Fax: (310) 216-1124 (Outside the Los Angeles Area: 800-662-6722) Internet website: }Firms born 'ntI. pm email: saddapanitzam
•
A
1IL
VIOTK HIGIITS IN 4110 ,\„0, , . , V.
voi I
1,
ic
111BRAZIL(AWVAL
•
.,.. also available
• $19.95 + $4.00 S/H
Brazil Carnaval '97
•
•
Mention this ad and receive 410% discount!
Separate versions for Windows 3.1x or Windows 95! Works inside your favorite Windows word processor, application, lAhndows Write, Notepad, VVordPad and morel Thousands of words, phrases and translations with all pmts of . speech fully identified! There's nothing Ike it ANYWHERE! Translate : to/from English or Brazilian Portuguese word-by-wort and phrase-by-phrase. Spell-checks in either lwimi -! Over 20,000 Portuguese verbs and verb phrases. size) Three different sized 1,1-directional English-Brazilian Portuguese dictionaries available: • III = 143,000+ combined entries—US$ 174.95 + US$ 5.00 ah • ll = 80,000+ combined entries—US$ 124.96 + US$ 5.00 s&h • I = 40,000+ combined enhies—US$ 69.95 + US$ 5.00 s&li Separate Conjugation Utility available to help conjugate 15,000 regular Portuguese verbs in the dictionary! (included with HI size). It adds thousands and thousands of words! Includes Portuguese grammar help (in English) and English grammar help (in Portuguese)! Customize your dictionary by adding your own words, phrases and translations—for business or personal correspondence. Speech Utility with Windows '96 version to help you practice your pronunciation of English or Portuguese! phone or your order today or call (303)329-8716 for mere information. We a,_-/A-V
and checks & money orders in U.& Dollars drawn on a US. bank Credit card orders must includer card, card number, a tli ela s.toion ointh dart = j a2d s! le.goarfo idr Rh4nts%red rumr.rvtizng handling via
Call 1-800-750-1941 MONDAY—FRIDAY • loAM — 7PM
Translation Experts USA PO Box 18035 • Denver, CO 80218 (303) 329-8716 • Fax (303) 388-
or send check or money order to A-VID International 729 8th St. SE • Washington, DC 20003 Visit our website at wvAv.a-vidinternationalcom
;5 • •
• Both just $34.95 + $ti S/H • All major credit cards • Same day shipping
4
•
• •
, t
it
;5 ;5 ;5 •• •
...
-
•
444444444444444444.:444444444444 irts rre _cheat 4slate spell
13RRZitiAtv PO21e6(1C5C
most gorgeous bronze Brazilian beauties captured on video.
'
• • • • • • • • • •
Word Translator,. for Windows.
Absolutely the
— .., —,, •
•
} 1
owitat is asegistered hademark tilif,i;iiic,rosoltaa is aout. ;5 Win bxissatim ta,r,,l-nw,siatoi..7 ail I ther magmaan around the wgITI."'Ia"m ;5 4444444444444444444444;54444444
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
In its continuing effort to be a truthful mirror of Brazil and its culture, Brazzil is publishing this special issue on eroticism. Despite the winds of political correctness sweeping Brazilian uninhibited shores and notwithstanding an all-too-recent official effort to hide from foreign eyes what every man, woman, and child in Brazil is well aware of, Brazilians are hot and quite proud of it too. Some parents may be shocked by their 3-year-old child dancing the sexually-charged so-called little butt's dance, but most ofthem seem boastful
of their little heroes naughtiness and they do treat the recent national phenomenon quite casually. Those who never went to Brazil or have left the country for some time wouldn't know for example that Folha de Silo Paulo, the country's most respected newspaper and the one that sells the most (more than one million copies on Sundays) has no restrictions on using words that most Americans wouldn't dare say in a locked dark room under seven eiderdowns. They wouldn't know either that the Brazilian magazines equivalent to American Newsweek and Life offer a continuous diet of titillating subjects accompanied by uncovered female breasts and other pudenda. And no reader bothers to fire up a single line to the editor to complain against salaciousness.
13
CONTENTS
http://www.brazzil.com These are the publications left on the living room's coffee table and at the doctor's office for the perusal of all the family. It is a different culture. Jorge Amado, Brazil's best known author, peppers his pages with pure softcore. On Brazilian prime-time novelas (soap operas) getting naked has become de rigueur. On radio, risque lyrics helped more than one band catapult to stardom. And in no other culture being a Playboy bunny has become such a badge of honor. It is a different world. Et vive la difference. R.M.
37
Cover
Sex: Brazil's favorite sport
Language
Just the basic of Brazilian
24
40
Controversy
Was Darcy Ribeiro a cheat, woman beater and compulsive liar?
Music
Cover by Sonia Pereira
27
Bakari, Kleber Jorge, and Meia Noite making waves in Hollywood
DEPARTM
Food
Manioc-100 faces of a savory root
54 Book Review
Jose Saramago's latest treasure
31
54
Short story
Rubem Mauro Machado's "Festa"
35 Short story
Leilah Assuncao's "A Palavra"
Special
Classifieds 50 U.S.A. Calendar 52 .= That's Brazilian
Looking for romance and a little more at Rio Carnaval
Send mail to: P.O. Box 42536 - Los Angeles, CA 90050-0536 Ads/Editorial: (213) 255-8062 - Subscrip.: (213) 255-4953 Fax: (213) 257-3487 - WEB page: http://www.brazzil.com E-mail: brazzil@brazzil.com
TIME TO RENEW? Sorry, we don't send reminders. Look at the label to know when your subscription ends.
Publisher and Editor: Rodney Mello / Entertainment Editors: Sam & Harriet Robbins / Book Review: Bondo Wyszpolski / Music Editor: Bruce Gilman / Representatives: MIAMI : Nosso Guia (305) 374-0096 - Valeria Mendes (Calendar) / BRAZIL: Celso Sawaia (011) 885-9288 E- mail: csawaia@br. homeshopping.com br BRAZZIL (ISSN 1091-868X) is published monthly by Brazzil - NOT mailing address: 2039 N. Ave. 52, Los Angeles, CA, 90042-1024. Periodicals Postage rate paid at Los Angeles, CA. Single copy sold for $2. One year subscription for 12 issues is $3 (three dollars) in the U.S., $15 in Canada and Mexico, and $18 (surface mail) in all other countries. No back issues sold. Allow 5 to 7 weeks to receive your first issue. You may quote from or reprint any of the contents with proper copyright credit. Editorial submissions are welcome. Include a SASE (self addressed and stamped envelope) if you want your material mailed back. Brazzil assumes no responsibility for any claims made by its advertisers.
POST MASTER: Please, send address changes to: BRAZZIL - P.O. Box 42536 - Los Angeles, CA - 90050-0536 BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
5
000iniNunr Ni II Mill MI Two kidnappings shook Brazil in September. In both cases a child was taken by the kidnappers. Ives Yossiaki Ota, 8, son of a businessman, was doing his homework at home in Sao Paulo when he was abducted. Cleuci Meirelles de Oliveira, 12, daughter of a Brasilia politician and businessman, was arriving at school when three hoodcovered kidnappers took her from a car being driven by a security man. Ives's kidnappers killed the boy when he recognized them. Only after that did they start negotiating for an initial $800,000 ransom. Cleuci's hiding place was stormed by police while the abductors were trying to get $5 million from her father, Luiz Estevao de Oliveira. More alarming than anything was the finding that in both cases the kidnappings had been perpetrated by military policemen. Kidnapping used to be more common in Brazil. In Rio, which in 1995 had 109 cases of abduction, the number of kidnappings fell to 73 in 1996 and totaled only 38 at the end of August this year. In Sao Paulo, though, the problem is growing. The number of abductions increased from nine in 1995 to 12 last year, with 15 more cases this year by the end of August. With the richer families hiring security and taking more precautions, kidnappers have started choosing their victims among the uppermiddle-class and the middle-class.
Edick> de a osto a
Recipe for Success Their style of advertising has been compared to the controversial campaigns of Italian clothing maker Benetton. Marcos Silveira, 42, and Sergio Eduardo de Paula, 38, the creators of ad agency Doctor, don't think this is a fair comparison, however. "We adopt an upbeat tone while Benetton campaigns, albeit winners, are somber," comments Silveira. Despite being less than one year old, Doctor has already won 22 medals from respected Premio Colunistas. A panel of experts has considered it Rio's best and Brazil's fifth most creative ad agency (losing only to four companies from Sao Paulo that are in the hands of multinationals). One thing they don't want is to create a "cute" campaign. "Our aim is to provoke impact," says Silveira. In a recent billboard for Ele e Ela, a for-men publication, they poked fun at mighty Playboy, the main competition. "Shut up, Magda," said the copy for the ad, which exhibited a radiantly naked Solange Gomes, the Ela e Ela covergirl. It happens that Marisa Orth, a TV actress who plays a character called Magda in the comedy show "Sai de Baixo" (Get Off There), was on Playboy's cover at the time. The ad's punch line is the same phrase that is continually directed to Marisa Orth on the show. In another memorable campaign, Doctor used Italian Jacopo Robusti Tintoretto's famous painting, the Last Supper, to change the popular image of a restaurant called Porcao (Big Pig). Silveira and de Paula became celebrities in the ad industry for their controversial and erotically-charged campaign for DuLoren, a lingerie company, showing lingerie-clad women kissing each other, a woman judge seducing a prisoner, and exhibitionist nuns. However, they are not all shocking, all the time. They can also be subtle, as in a piece for Rio's daily Jornal do Brasil, a respected newspaper that is barely surviving the competition with powerful 0 Globo. In this case the ad showed two headlines from the papers for the same day and about the same subject. The Jornal do Brasil headline says: "Romario is back on the national team." The one from 0 Globo reads: "Zagalo says that Romario has lobby." In a subhead 0 Globo assures that soccer player extraordinaire Romario was off the national team. The whole country would soon know that JB was right. So, the coup de grace in this ad worked perfectly, with this simple statement. "When in doubt, read JB".
Forbidden Fruit American diplomats in Brazil were recently deprived of a series of
6
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
anon
Tough Love Sporting red cards inspired by those use by soccer referees to expel unruly players, tens of t ousands of Brazilians took to the streets on September 7, Brazil's Independence Day. They were all particip ting in the "Cry of the Excluded", a protest action orga ized by the Catholic Church together with other activi t organizations such as the MST (Movimento dos S •m Terra— Landless Movement) and CUT (Centra Unica de Trabalhadores—Unified Workers Federatio ). Some 800 towns across the country j ned in the movement, but the action did not always dra crowds. In 0 In Salvador, Bahia FlorianOpolis, capital of Santa Catarina, for xarnple, no more than 500 people participated. The mos expressive concentration occurred in Aparecida do Nort , site of the largest Marian shrine in Brazil, a place that is normally packed on w ekends and holidays. Talking to a crowd of 150,000 people in Aparecida, Bishop Angel co Sandalo Bernardino scolded the government: "Authorities bend their knees befor the golden calf, smiling to the nation, saving currency and bankers while millions o people lose their employment and are crushed under the ruins of the bankrupt publi health and educational systems. The land given by God for the use and ownership of 11 has been taken over by a few who have turned it into an object of negotiation and speculation and not as something to be used for planting and for living on." And he went on: "The nation assists, scandalized, in acts such as the buying and selling of votes and other spurious bargains. The justice system continues to serve only the rich and powerful. With our presence here we are saying 'enough' to the neo-liberal wave responsible for the unemployment, hunger and despair of so many people. We want to say 'enough' to corruption, impunity and the lack of a firm portical will to bring about a solution of the social problems which afflict our people." Presidency
Full of Teeth What moved President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is making Brazili ns chuckle. Flying dentures, chickens with dentures, and all kinds of jokes involving t othless and dental prostheses have plastered the Brazilian media since Cardoso an unced that dentures were the new symbol for the Real, his economic strategy to fight i flation and improve the economy. "In the old days, people were saying that chicken was the hero of Real, afterwards it was yogurt's turn, but now I think this place belongs to the denture," said the President. "Go see the poor getting teeth. This is not a laughing matter, this is the truth, this is a huge step forward, the fact that the person can take care of himsel . This is the Real plan and this moves me." Cardoso revealed later that he discovered the relationship between h s economic plan and dentures when he met Joaquim, the housekeeper on his ranch, flashing a big smile with brand new teeth. This was an old dream of his, he told the President. The Associac"do Brasileira de Odontologia (Brazilian Odontological Association) maintains that 80 percent of the 1.4 million toothless Brazilians are already wearing dentures. And dentists and prosthodontists have noticed a decline, not an increase, in the number of people ordering dentures in the last year or so. Curiously, FHC's aides had suggested that he use the present fever in house construction as the new symbol for the Real, since the number of new buildings has increased by 10 percent since the beginning of the year. But the image of a smiling denture seemed more appealing to the President. BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
vegetables and fruits brought from the U.S. when officials from the Brazilian Agriculture Ministry decided to incinerate the perishable goods. They were all inside a U.S. Air Force C141, which at least once a month takes three tons in products—from water to disposable diapers, toilet paper, sanitary napkins and even cat food—to the American diplomats exiled in Brazil. The reason for the searchand-destroy mission is a Brazilian law requiring that non-industrialized products be accompanied by a phytosanitary certificate when entering the country. According to weekly newsmagazine Veja, among the incinerated products were boxes of lettuce, tomato, radishes, and lemons. There were also several bags of asparagus, corn, onion, and broccoli. Apparently no other country among the 96 with diplomatic representation in Brazil imports its own broccoli. "The only thing Americans don't import is oxygen," says a Brazilian diplomat. "But they would if they could."
McGrammar In an experience that generated plenty of good will and free publicity in the media, the McDonald's restaurant chain in Brazil decided to include some notions of Portuguese in the ingredients of its Big Mac. The company launched an institutional TV campaign which uses humor to correct some frequent grammar mistakes. "Aqui falta dois Big Macs" (Two Big Macs is missing) says a father in one of the spots. "This family does not agree on anything," says Pasquale Cipro Neto, the star of the commercial, before showing how to say it right: "Aqui faltam dois
7
Big Macs." Cipro Neto, a Portuguese teacher, is already known on TV from a program on educational television, TV Cultura, called Nossa Lingua Portuguesa (Our Portuguese Language). Regarding his $50,000 fee, he is donating most of it to Fundacao Padre Anchieta, the cash-strapped foundation that finances TV CuItura. Does he love Big Macs? "A sandwich only when prepared by my wife," he confesses.
di= The Bandit We Love Convicted American rapist Caryl Chessman, the Red Light Bandit, became famous in the '40s for robbing women and then abducting and forcing them to perform sexual acts. His epithet came from his habit of flashing a red light similar to those used on police cars—on his victims' faces. Convicted under California's Little Lindbergh law, Chessman was sentenced to death, but through personally conducted appeals he was able to stay his execution for 12 years until 1960 when he died in the gas chamber. His address in San Quentin, Cell 245, Death Row, became known worldwide after he wrote a book using it as the title. The Brazilian Red Light Bandit (Bandido da Luz Vermelha), released after 30 years in prison, has been all over the news in Brazil these days. Apart the same nickname, both criminals appear to have nothing else in common. The Brazilian doesn't have a developed intellect, having only completed the third grade. Joao Acacio Pereira da Costa was initially called Homem-Macaco (Monkey-Man) by police, but reporters changed it after a victim reported that he had entered her house at night with a flashlight and then had kissed her hand before leaving. Vain to the extreme, after seeing reports of his robbery as "Assault the American Way", Luz Vermelha bought a red bulb for his flashlight. "I was inspired by the journalists," he told daily paper Ultima Hora in 1968. "I've done other burglaries using a red-light. The newspapers were the ones that gave me the idea of becoming the Luz Vermelha." Condemned to 351 years in prison for 88 crimes, including four murders, seven murder attempts, several rapes and assaults, Luz—that's how he wants to be called now benefited from the new 1985 constitution, which limits prison terms to a maximum of 30 years. Toothless, disheveled, holding a Bible, and totally incoherent, Joao Acacio, who is 55 years old now, is living in Joinville, state of Santa Catarina, with his uncle, 81, the same man who took him and his brother home as a child. His father died of tuberculosis when he was eight years old and his mother abandoned him soon after that. It is hard to say why Luz Vermelha has become a legend and Brazil's most notorious contemporary outlaw. He was even the subject of Rogerio Sganzerla's very successful movie 0 Band/do da Luz Vermelha, released in 1968, just one year after the criminal was captured. At 17 he was already known by the police in Joinville for the three dozen or so bicycles he had stolen. At 18 he was jailed for stealing a Jeep. He escaped from prison and moved to Sao Paulo in 1963, at age 21. Over four years he terrorized a city and was condemned to a term that should have kept him behind bars for many lives. His reign was short. He wasn't particularly clever or vicious—although convicted for four murders and he was involved in a little more than 100 burglaries and robberies. Seven of his 30 years in detention were spent in lunatic asylums. Luz Vermelha is obsessed by the Statue of Liberty and talks frequently about the subject, according to his lawyer Jose Luiz Pereira. Recently, when the prosecution was able to get an injunction so he could be transferred to a prison-hospital, alleging that he was a danger to society and himself, the Brazilian media screamed foul. Weekly newsmagazine 1st° E, for example, wrote: "The law says: he who stays in jail for 30 yeas straight has to be released, it doesn't matter if he has been condemned to an eternity." Joao Acacio ended being released on August 26, three days later than scheduled. The same media then gave the convicted murderer the star treatment when he was
Reigning Fear A study recently released by the Brazilian Movimento Nacional de Direitos Humanos (National Movement for Human Rights) shows that a mere 7.44 percent of all murder cases in Brazil put the accused in prison. This percentage is even lower when the people indicted are drug traffickers, policemen, and hired killers. Mistrust of justice and the lack of protection for witnesses are in large part responsible for this situation. To address this problem, the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration is introducing a bill in congress to create the Program of Protection for Witnesses and Victims. Inspired by similar strategies in Italy and the United States, though much more modest in scope, the law would guarantee police protection for two years to people who serve as witnesses in crimes involving police or organized crime. Under some circumstances the individual being threatened might be moved to a different city and receive some monetary aid until he gets a job. The announcement has been received with skepticism in many circles. In an interview with weekly magazine 1st° E, Marco Ant6nio Ferreira Lima, a prosecutor in sao Paulo who received death threats from police officers, doubts that the new legislation will change anything: "If the State is not able to protect its own representatives, how can it think it can protect I. 8
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
Hot Waters
finally let go. Every one of his steps outside the prison was described in detail: his words, what he ate, the visit to three whorehouses where he joked with the working ladies but didn't go to bed with anyone, and the near brawl that ensued after a male fan in the brothel tried to kiss him. Loquacious, at times he can just stop talking, becoming suddenly mute. One of his dreams, he said, was buying a Chrysler Simca Chambord, a luxury car from the period when he was incarcerated. Despite all of his Don Juan aura and convictions for rape, weekly magazine Veja wrote that Luz never had a girlfriend, ignored the hundreds of marriage proposals he got while in prison and ended up falling in love with cook Bernardino Marques, a male inmate. Even as a youngster, Luz Vermelha already presented a series of symptoms of disturbed personality. He liked to dress as a tropical cowboy wearing colorful pants, flowery shirts, hat, boots, and spurs. He sometimes presented himself as a GaUcho (from Rio Grande do Sul) farmer, sometimes as a Paulista (from Sao Paulo) industrialist. He also liked to flash his opulence, conspicuously leaving money hanging halfway out of his pockets. Always acting alone, he preferred the thrill of an inhabited house, choosing to rob during the night instead of on weekends. He would usually cut the electricity to the house. Legend has it that he would become a Don Juan when there was only a lady in the house and that he would end up raping the woman. In one of his exploits, after killing businessman Jean von Christian Szarazpatak in June 1967—and he did this to prove that he was still on the loose after police caught a man who they claimed to be Luz Vermelha— he put on his victim's clothes and left the house by the front door. The police had surrounded the place after being called by neighbors who had heard the shooting, but did nothing to stop him. Another of his victims was 19-year-old student Walter Bedran. And once Luz killed a worker just because he did not like the way he stared at him. Soon after leaving prison, Luz, through his lawyer, offered the press a chance to make a photographic essay of himself naked. It was one of his dreams, his attorney said. A Santa Catarina newspaper took some pictures of him in the buff, but didn't have the nerve to publish them. No one else has shown any interest. On the first night in his new home, Luz scared his hosts. When his uncle woke up at 6 AM, he had disappeared. Soon after, he was brought back by a friendly driver. "I feel like a free butterfly," he explained. He had left to walk all over the city. "Everybody loves me," he concluded quite content. .1 BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
Known worldwide for its piracy of audiO and videotapes, pharmaceutical products, and software, Brazil is also being recognized for the number of its real pirates, those who attack and sack ships. In its list ofpirate-infested seas, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) cites the coast of Brazil as third worst, with 16 cases of piracy in the first semester of 1996, losing Out only to the south of China (73 cases) and West1Africa (19 cases). Experts on tie subject say that Brazil had many more than 16 eiiisodes of piracy in the first six months of the year. "The numbers we have are all but fictitious," said Celso Paes Leme from Centro Nacional de Navegacao Transatl anti ca (National Center of Transatlantic Navigation) in an interview with weekly magazine Alanchete. In the Port of Santos alone, among 49 Brazilian ports, there were 17 cases of piracy registered by the federal police. Many more cases, however, go unreported due to the bureaucracy involved. To make a report of piracy to Brazilian authorities, ships must stay anchored several days, paying a $25,000 daily fee while the legal process drags on. Pirates, generally using ultrafast boats, can act with impunity. In Rio, the federals in charge of the port don't even have a row boat. Foreign governments have been trying to help, but with very tittle luck. Rio received a $500,000 boat as a gift from Germany, but the donation was transferred to the port of Santos, where the situation seems to be even worse. Completely in the dark, authoritie§ have been asking themselves if the pirates are not foreigners attracted by the total impunity and ease with which they can do their work.
victims and witnesses?"
The Mouse That Roared Now the world can know. The Brazilian submarine Tamoio has sunk a NATO aircraft carrier, the Principe Astigias, from the Spanish Navy. The episode occurred in May, but only now has the Brazilian Navy made public the top-secret information. It's true that the sinking was only simulated, occurring as part of the Link Seas Operation war games, but the action was nevertheless important. Invited to participate in the naval exercises, Brazil was expected to be a mere decorative figure since the country's Armed Forces are acutely underfunded. Many European nations could not believe that Brazil had conventional submarines, and much less that they are currently developing their own nuclear submarine in IperO, state of Sao Paulo. Helping the Brazilian effort-450 Brazilian men participated in the maneuvers—were other national war vessels such as corvette Julio de Noronha and frigate Uniao, which were able to neutralize the ultrasophisticated radars of NATO's fleet. Considering this, it is now expected that the Brazilian Navy will once again be invited when it is time for NATO's 1998 war games.
Messy Fun Forro, the supercharged northeastern ball that according to legend comes from the English expression "for all", has become all the rage in the south of Brazil. Forro is not a musical genre but a party in which a diversity of rhythms is allowed and encouraged, including baido, coco, frevo, xaxado, and xote. Traditional forr6 balls held in Rio and Sao Paulo for the large northeastern migrant
9
community have seen a growing invasion by local youngstersdrawn by the energy of these parties and the fact that the couples have to dance cheek to cheek. Several youth clubs are reserving one night week for the novelty. a In :places like Sao Paulo's 'Pr orra oje,to.Equilibrio, Friday, o ight, , has become lketh ea s busiest party, wcelek to 1,000 people e house for the packing tehbi so-called ao (big ball). :ftytheway, according to Brazilian music historian JoseRamos Tinhoran, orn f f an abbreviarOisjust o or orrobodo, a word eaning mess confusion. omethingforra certainly
Second Chance? Back in Brazil after a selfunposed exile in Miami, former President Fernando Color de Mello has been extremely busy trying to put his political career back on track. He has been denied political Tights and is forbidden by 'Congress from seeking any elective post until the year 2000 on the grounds of corruption while serving the presidency. Collor was elected in 1989 on an anticorruption platform. The former President, who resigned in 1992, has now appealed to the Supreme Court to have his rights reinstated so that he may run in the 1998 national elections. "'Fernando Collor has been accused of everything imaginable, but nothing has ever been proved against him," said Rony Curvelo, the exPresident's spokesman. "I am sure that if his political rights are restored, there is a good chance he will run in the 1998 elections, although I am not at liberty to say for what office." Collor has hinted in -Several recent interviews that he would like another
10
Their life refrail ongs: 'To burn ev!rythin tated Public En 'lee and a ta s te o Espirito Santo'', present thetn.le in the federal card' well as the cities of Sal dor and Curitiba. The D2, Rafael, Bacalhau ( odfish), and Formigao (Big Ant), Rios defying hip-hop b Planet Hemp. They seem to relish the ban, and persecution has aiiparently helped sales. Their second CD—Os Giles Ladram Mas a Caravarta Ndo Para (The Dogs Bark But the Caravan Doesn't Stop)— is out now, and as on the first album, the band's main focus is the promotion of marijuana. They are proud of their bete noire status. "We are here to throw logs on the fire and make things happen," says D2, the group's lyricist rooner, who comes from the favela (shantytown) ant .''i;k?a$ a; drug trafficker at age I4. Tbeitultinsate goal is to have:pot galized in Brazil. The bad becomes very amused talking about all e times police have searched them, once even with sniffi g dogs, trying to find the product they praise and say the se. All police efforts to put them in jail, however, have bee in vain. Se Liga T urn on Marcelo D2 Se segura na cadeira Planet Hemp na area E born ficar ligado que o gatilho nab falba 0 som e chapado e o lero vai na lata Preste atencao, mermao, isso é ouro nao é prata Nao faca o que eu fact), faca o que eu digo Entao se liga, se liga que aqui nap ganha no grito 0 nome éMarcelo, vulgo D2 0 que eu tenho pra falar eu falo agora Nao tern cao, nao you deixar pra depois Entao se liga, na minha se cola sangue born Mantenha o respeito e so o que atinge é o som
Hold on to your chair Planet Hemp's in the area It's good to be on 'cause the trigger does not fail The sound is full blast and the talk goes in your face Pay attention, bro, this is gold and not silver Don't do what I do, do what I say Turn on then turn on 'cause you don't win by screaming The name is Marcelo, AKA D2 What I have to tell you I will say now There is no lie I am not leaving it for later Turn on then, I will deal only with cool dudes Maintain respect and all that will reach you will be the sound
Já disse e digo de novo, que o I've told and I'm telling again gatilho nao falha that the trigger does not fail Planet Hemp, cumpadi, invadindo Planet Hemp, buddy, invading a sua area your area E urn, dois, tits It's one, two, three 0 meu cartucho eu descarrego de My cartridge I unload at once uma vez The mind isthe weapon, the A mente é a arrna, a voz ë a bala voice is the bullet Sai tudo de uma vez, nao tern It gets off all at once, there is parada errada no wrong stop Nao cola na minha, o flagrante já tá Don't stick to me, the convicna mente tion is already in the mind Nao percebeu, cumpadi? Aqui 6 Don't you get it buddy? Here is diferente. different. Mas se eu to corn os camaradas But I am with my buddies and gnat) td tudo tranquil° . all's cool E born ficar ligado e ver quem It's good to be on and see who corre perigo. is in danger Se eu saio na balada, o que eu If I leave in a zip, all I want is quero é paz peace Vamos direto ao assunto, deixa de Cut to the chase, stop the heleva e traz said-so Se voce ainda nao conhece eu you If you still don't know, I will apresentar present you Esquadrilha da Fumaca, Planet Hemp Smoke Squadron, Planet Hemp Nao cola na minha, o flagrante já ta Don't stick to me, the convicna mente tion is already in the mind Nao percebeu a fumaca? Endo se Didn't you notice the smoke? liga, Then turn on, Planet Hemp, presente. Planet Hemp present
chance to run the country. Brazilians will be going to the polls in October 1998 to choose governors and congressmen, as well as the president. If presidential elections were held today, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the current president and favored candidate for the presidency, would come in first, but not with enough votes to avoid a runoff. To guarantee the presidency in the first round, Cardoso would need more than 50 percent of the votes. A recent survey by DataFolha showed that the President would get from 34 percent to 37 percent of the votes, depending on who his opponents are. This despite the fact that Cardoso's popularity has risen in the past few months. In June, 39 percent of the respondents said that his administraon was very good, while that number rose to 43 percent by mid-September.
Brazil has started its uphill battle to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. Brazilian Foreign Minister Luiz Felipe Lampreia launched razil's official candidacy to the still-to-be-created post during the opening session of the U.N. General Assembly on September 22. Brazil wants to represent Latin America and the Caribbean, but it only has the backing of Chile in the region. Argentina's President, Carlos Menem, has irritated the Brazilian government by recently defending a rotating system among the Latin American countries. Lampreia said that Brazil was "willing to accept the responsibilities of permanent membership if called upon by the
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
international community to do so." Addressing the Argentinean position, the Brazilian minister said in , his U.N. speech: "The identification of the new permanent members must be an exercise of realism and pragmatism." And responding to U.S. proposals that the new partners be denied veto power, the foreign minister declared: "We must not create a third or fourth category of members" which would weaken the power of Third World countries in the United Nations. Lampreia stressed Brazil's repudiation of "all discrimination in the conception or assignment of new seats." The Security Council now has five permanent members: United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom. Most U.S. congressmen are apparently against new council membership and would not ratify any treaty that would create new U.N. members with veto power.
White Coup Pope John Paul II has once again shown that he puts his veto pen where his mouth is. Angry at the Society of St. Paul's publishing company for, releasing a book on sexuality by a renowned Brazilian educator, he decided to name people he trusts as temporary administrators in Rome, as well as in Brazil where the publishing house is known as Paulinas. The sinful book: Educactio Sexual na Escola (Sexual Education in School), which was written by Maria Helena Matarazzo. gifk.,A4
Backtracking It was a first in the 109year-old Brazilian republic. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso went back on a previous veto
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
Genius Touch His paintings had become too repetitive and banal, the critics said, and for more than a decade hardly anybody was talking about him. But when the diminutive apanese but naturalized Brazilian Manabu Mabe, 73, died cn September 22 some weeks after a kidney transplant in Salo Paulo, the media started to talk again about how great he was. Born on September 14, 1924, in the town of Kumamoto, Japan, Mabe arrived in Brazil at the age often. His immigrant parents settled on a coffee plantation in Lins in the interior of SAo Paulo state. Mabe worked on the plantation, where in the middle of the coffee trees this autodidact started his first painting atelier. When he couldn't find a proper canvas, a coffee bean sack had to do. It was in 1956 that Mabe started his abstract phase, which earned him the most respect and admiration. In 1959 he won the sao Paulo Fifth Bienal's Grand Prize. He ad to rush to get his Brazilian citizenship so he could acce t the award. The painter received more than 80 awards, i eluding one from the Paris Biennial. Until the end, this e uberant and cheerful artist was never comfortable speakin Portuguese. He leaves behind some 3,000 paintings. The most valuable, painted between 1955 and 1967, are worth up to $120,000, the best price paid for contemporary Brazilian paintings. One third of this work has been taken abroad, mostly to Japan and the United States.
Double Pleasure The more he changes the more he stays the same. What good news for the fans of writer Rubem Fonseca, who are getting their favorite author on a double billing. His latest release comes in a box with two books: the novel E do Meio do Mundo Prostituto So A mores Guardei ao Meu Charuto (And From Amid the Prostitute World I Only Kept Love to My Cigar), and Historias de Amor (Love Stories), a selection of short stories. Fonseca has always been considered b tter with the shorter than longer tales, and this last pro uction is no exception. Curiously enough, two of the rnos famous characters of his short stories get together in t e new novel. They are Gustavo Flavio, the writer fr m "Bufo & Spalanzani," and Mandrake, the attorney fr m "A Grande Arte" (The Big Art). As usual, Fonseca's smoke-filled world i populated by corrupt characters, venal policemen and col -blooded assassins. Using this same recipe in the past, the reclusive former police officer and enfant terrible of n ational literature has produced what some consider the b st-ever short story in Brazilian literature: "Fel iz Ano Novo (Happy New Year).
and asked congressmen to override his decision. The issue in question is sterilization offered by the government as an option for those repeatedly returning to public clinics for family planning. Apparently, without reading the bill but advised by the Health ministry„ Cardoso, had opposed legislation offering vasectomies and tubal ligation as a method of birth control. The new law should favor the poorest people since sterilization is already a common practice in Brazil. According to a study by Universidade de Campinas, 40 percent of all Brazilian women between the ages of 16 and 49 have had ligations. The IBGE (Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatistica—Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) has found that in the northern area of the country, 24 percent of young women between the ages of 15 and 24 have had a tubal ligation in the hospital while giving birth. The practice is so sought after that many politicians pay for the procedure in exchange for votes. "With legalization of sterilization, all this immorality will finally come to an end," says Jose Aristodemo Pinotti, a doctor, politician, and activist for family planning.
In-Fighting The PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores Workers' Party) has lost one of its brightest stars, Luiza Erundina, former mayor of Sao Paulo and exminister during Itamar Franco's presidency. The fiery politician, one of PT's founders, had been clashing with other leaders of the party for some time. The decision to leave PT was made, she said, in response to the
11
criticism she received from the socalled Shiite wing of the party during her 1996 campaign to retake Sao Paulo's City Hall. The last few weeks—before the October 3 deadline for those wishing to change parties to run for the October 1998 elections—have seen a busy party realignment of politicians. Besides Erundina, who opted for the PSB (Partido Socialista Brasileiro-Brazilian Socialist Party), Parana governor Jaime Lerner also changed party, provoking a big commotion. He moved from the PDT to the PFL (Partido da Frente Liberal—Party of the Liberal Front), a party from the right that has allied itself with the current liberal socialist administration.
Much Better If the sheer number of laws and hours dedicated to Congress were the main gauge of democracy in action, Brazil would have a more perfect democracy than that of the United States. Walder de Goes e Consultores Associados put the numbers together and found out that last year the Brazilian House of Representatives (the Camara dos Deputados) had 296 sessions, more than double the 140 held by the Yankee legislative corps. And this is just the beginning. While the lazy American senators got together only 150 times during the whole year, their Brazilian colleagues met 260 times. And did you know that the Brazilian deputados approved 264 new laws in 1996 compared to a mere 192 from the American House of Representatives? While the U.S. senators dished up 53 new laws, the Brazilians put them to shame, inscribing 264 new laws on the books. The profusion of legislation, concludes the study, means that many wrongs are being righted.
Magic Bean An extract of guandu, a wild bean from Brazil, has revealed great potential in curing diabetes and tests with humans should start in a few weeks. Given to mice by a research team from Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP) in Piracicaba, the substance was able to reduce the levels of glucose in their blood from 400mg/d1 to 92mg/d1. A glucose level from 80 mg/di to 100 mg/di is considered normal. The guandu extract, made with the vegetable when still green, also contributed to lowering the mice's cholesterol level. There are an estimated 7 million Brazilians who suffer from diabetes, half of which do not know they have the disease.
12
Fast Indigestion The spread of the popular by-the-kilogram plates which feature a variety
of choices at inviting prices (but on the other hand fuel totally unrealistic expectations), are killing the American fast-food industry in Brazil. An exception to this is the McDonald's chain, which continues to thrive and has become the seventh largest operation of the food conglomerate among the 89 countries where it has set up kitchen. Subway Sandwiches entered Brazil in 1994 with ambitious plans. Six of its 57 restaurants closed their doors this year, and some, to survive—supreme heresy—are selling coxinha (fried mashed potatoes with chicken filling) and chicken soup. The whole chain has been put up for sale. Kentucky Fried Chicken arrived in 1992 and planned to open 300 stores. Only 23 were opened and most of them will be closed soon. There will only be eight left, all in major shopping malls. Pizza Hut, which like KFC belongs to Pepsi, has been in Brazil since 1989. In April, all 18 restaurants of the chain in Rio were closed. The prospect for the 134 stores remaining is not rosy. Domino's, another pizza multinational, lost a lot of money in Brazil before its sinking.
PAW mut®
o.e
Priceless Front Posing as Eve, with only a snake to cover her sculptural body, Brazilian model Luciana Gimenez, 24, has been making Londoners and Germans fall to temptation. Her naked anatomy has been plastered on billboards in the London subway, promoting goods for the Morgan store chain. Accompanied by her friendly boa constrictor, she has also been featured on the cover of German magazines. Gimenez's main asset seems to be her natural, voluminous, and firm breasts, which have been praised by experts like Bella Freund and the late-Gianni Versace. So valuable are her round, ripe, gravity-defying boobs that she has insured them for a respectable $160,000. Her European success has made her a star in Brazil and she was recently invited as a top model to show her wares at Rio's Barra Shopping Style Week. Gimenez is using the occasion for a little vacation in her homeland. BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
leasure rinciple The sun, the sca ty clothing, the mixing of races, the taste f sin, all have contributed to making Brazil he most erotic land on the planet. Here WE show how Carnaval, TV, newspapers, w •iters, composers, fleshy girls are all toget er in a conspiracy against the citizen who just wants to live his life without s much sex, sex, sex thrown down his throat. RODOLFO ESPINOZA Welcome to Plea ure Land. You can watch and you can even touch. Look at t e all but naked bodies slowly toasting under the tropical sun the sweaty uncovered female and male breasts and butts fre etically following the rhythm of the samba in Carnaval, s all these very young and not so young girls simulating sex ver a beer bottle. Bodies overflowing from the straight jack ts of skimpy shorts, bill boards and ads exhibiting lusty torso • and tempting lips, prime-time novelas oozing sensuality wi h constant scenes of couples doing it very visibly in the b ff. Listen to the risque lyrics of the hit songs. Blame it on the s n, blame it on genes or blame it on the powerful mix of Port guese, Indian and African blood, there is no denying that Bra ilians are an oversexed bunch. Political correctness has natu ally arrived there from the northern hemisphere and Bra ilian authorities have been trying to rewrite the poster by hich they want Brazil to be known to the world. Prominent bu s on the beach are out for foreign consumption, but they ar still very much in Brazilians' everyday life. Which are the mo t sensual people on earth? Club Meda chain of more than 120 pleasure resorts spread all over the world—also wanted o know this from its annual 1.5 million well-to-do visitors. B azilian women and men came up on top as the hottest. Nothi g less than 78 percent of the Club Med guests voted for the razilians. And Brazilian women were also voted by 51 perc nt of the respondents as the world's best kissers. Commenting on he results, Jean Michel Landau, Club Med' s President, sai : "These results are very meaningful. Every time we have a group of Brazilians in some of our hotels, the atmospher generally changes for the better, everything gets funnier an hotter." A wide-ranging urvey on Brazilians and happiness by respected poll comp my DataFolha, which belongs to daily newspaper Folha de do Paulo, had surprising and contradictory revelations on h w Brazilians perceive themselves and deal with their sex li . Seventy percent of them, for example, BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
13
are happy with their sex life. When men are taken separately, this satisfaction index soars to 80 percent, while women stay at a lower 60 percent. There are only 7 percent who consider themselves sexually unhappy. Curiously, however, no one has spontaneously listed sex as a sine-qua-non of happiness. Even when the survey, which heard 2698 people 16 years old or over in 128 different municipalities from all 26 Brazilian states, presented sex as essential for happiness only I percent of the respondents chose it. Forty eight percent of Brazilians say that they have all the sex they want while 36 percent reveal that they would like to have more of it. Another 14 percent complain that they are having too much sex. And 7 percent tell that they never had sex. Among those who have had sexual relations in the past, 52 percent said they are having sex at least once a week. In second place come the 12 percent that are having no sex at all (80 percent of those are widows). Eleven percent ofthe interviewees say they have sex each and every day. For 10 percent sex is a fortnight activity and a monthly one for 7 percent of the population. Sexual partners seem very happy with what they have at their side in bed. Not less than 43 percent give a 10 to their mates. The average is a high 8.3 percent. Women, in particular, are very generous when rating their men. And Brazilian women appreciate sex. A study on birth control by John Hopkins University in 1993 showed that the women from Brazil had on average eight copulations a month, the highest average among Third World countries. By comparison, women in developed countries had on average from three to six monthly sexual encounters. American magazine Cosmopolitan found out that 53 percent of Brazilian women have an orgasm almost every time they have sex. In the world taken as a whole 26.6 percent of the women say they often reach their climax. SEX TIIIIIIIME And when Italian publication Riza Psicossomatica made a survey on the duration of the sexual act they found out that Brazilians (together with Africans) take an average of 45 minutes to consummate the encounter. Nobody does it better, or at least, nobody does it longer. The French, for example, famous for their frequency of intercourse don't take more than six minutes in their real wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. The same six minutes used by the Americans. Italians don't fare much better, with an average of eight minutes for a full copulation. The British will be hard to be beat, since they have hardly any time to even take their clothes off in the three minutes for sex allotted to them. Sexual initiation seems to be starting earlier and earlier in Brazil. Boys are getting into puberty between the ages of 11 and 14. As for the girls, menarche, the first menstruation, is coming six months earlier for each passing generation. According to gynecologist Carlos Alberto Diegoli in an interview with Folha de Sao Paulo, girls in Sao Paulo are menstruating for the first time when they are around 12 years-old. "But much before that," he says, "they start to develop their sexuality, to wear bra and skimpier panties, and they begin to look at their own bodies and want to expose their physical development." In an article about early sexual initiation in the city of Sao Paulo, Revista da Folha, Folha de Selo Paulo's Sunday supplement, concluded after interviewing 200 children that when they reach 10, most kids have already given a French kiss and that many boys have sex for the 14
first time when they are 13, while by 16 the majority of the girls are not virgin anymore. Tuned to the precocity of the children some schools are trying to adapt themselves to the times. In Sao Paulo, for example, Colegio Oswald de Andrade, a private elementary school, is thinking about including sexual orientation on the curriculum, starting in second grade. The program began three years ago with the eighth graders, but today the course starts in fourth grade. There is a contradiction between what Brazilians teenagers think about sex and what they do in a real life situation. A study at the end of 1995 by Sao Paulo state's Programa de Safide do Adolescent (Adolescent's Health Program) revealed, for example, that 86.7 percent of 1,500 youngsters with ages ranging from 13 to 20 knew the value and the way how to use contraceptives. But 70,1 percent of those who had had sex didn't use any protection in their first sexual encounter. For 67,6 percent of them the best age to start an active sexual life is between 16 and 18 years. Despite that, among those sexually active (40.1 percent of the respondents), 62.7 percent had their initiation between the ages of 13 and 17. In another contradiction, 70.5 percent think it is OK to have sex before marriage while 40.4 percent believe that to marry virgin is a woman's dream. The study has also shown a high level of romanticism among youngsters. Sixty percent of those who had already had sex chose their boyfriend or girlfriend for their first time. "Young people do not accept the old imposition that they start their sexual activities with a professional anymore," noted Albertina Duarte Takiuti, the coordinator of the research. ARTISTIC NUDE The Brazilian fascination with the naked body also has its sophisticated side. An exposition by late American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe was an unexpected hit bringing 25,000 people in two moths to see his nudes and homoerotic pictures, more than famous painters like Brazil's own Candid° Portinari. On the other hand, Brazilian painting hasn't shied away from eroticism. Di Cavalcanti, one of the most renowned Brazilian painters, for example, has celebrated lust. In 1926, he painted 0 Samba, a colorful canvas in which two bare-breasted women are shown in a ball hall. Brazilian literature is full of erotic characters too. Nineteenth century most revered Brazilian writer, Machado de Assis, wrote Dom Casmurro in which the heroine—or villain—is Capitu and the whole book revolves around the never-solved doubt of whether the son she has is from her husband or from his best friend. World-renowned best-selling author Jorge Amado has become famous with erotically-charged works like Gabriela, Cravo e Canela (Gabriela. Clove and Cinnamon) and Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos (Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands) (See box with sample text). Waldenyr Caldas, a professor of Brazilian Culture Sociology at USP's (Universidade de Sao Paulo) Escola de ComunicacOes e Artes (School of Coummunications and Arts) noted recently: "Our tropical weather makes us more libertarian sexually and this is reflected upon our literature, which is charged with erotic characters." One of the most talked about books in Brazil right now is the just-released Amor Sem-Vergonha (Shameless Love). It is a collection of racy short stories by Paulista (from Sao Paulo) author Regina Rheda, 40. Rheda has made a name for herself after the publication of the 1994 prize-winning Arca de Noe—Historias do Edificio Copan (Noah's Ark—Stories of the Copan Building). Her new book has ten naughty-action-filled BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
short stories starting with "0 Homem do Pau Bonito" (The Man With the Pretty Dick), which according to Rheda is a composite of men she knew and who were "vain and conceited". The writer also confessed, "Sometimes I got so excited that I had to stop writing." The stories, written originally for a porno magazine under the Angela dos Santos pseudonym, are no subtle psychological portraits. "Leilane went down all perfumed, in a miniskirt almost as short as the blouse that inhibited, as a volleyball net, her pretty round breasts," reads one of the stories. "Bracelets, necklaces, and earrings chimed to the rhythm of her chubby gait. A black lacy stocking showed more than it hid the beauty of her knees and thighs. Leilane got in the car and smeared with lipstick her boss's mouth. He felt growing inside his pants that something that men have at same time as the most virile and most vulnerable." One year ago, Carioca (from Rio) writer Heloisa Seixas, 44. provoked quite a stir with .A Porta (The Door), her first novel. Her intention was to prove that erotic books can be high culture. Her very contemporary tale happens in a Rio already privy to Internet and Email. Heroine Helena meets Pedro in an orgy party. Then, already on page 15 comes the story: "this huge man rises at her feet. Initially still, hands close to the thighs, the sex hanging in repose like a bird." WITHOUT BLUSHING Well before the censored scandal-laced advertising by a 13-year-old Brooke Shields telling Americans in the '80s: "Nothing comes between me and my Calvins", Brazilians had seen a much brasher ad for jeans with a young lady in a swimming pool having her pants being pulled off under the watchful eyes of an underwater camera while the copy read: "Take your clothes for the one you love." With a Catholic majority, Brazilians are a conservative bunch, but there is no contradiction there. Apparently it is the sin's taste, the forbidden 'fruit appeal that makes sex s9 pleasurable and transgressions so sought. In a recent interview with weekly newsmagazine /sto E, Brazil-based American anthropologist Richard Parker commented: "Sexuality and sin, the transgression of the law and the moral are valued here. There is no topless here, but there is the fib dental (dental floss). I can't find a sole explanation for this • characteristic of idolizing eroticism, but the truth is that Brazilians are absolutely fascinated by sex." Parker has lived in Brazil for 15 years and he has written the book Corp os, Prazeres e Paix5es: A Cultura Sexual no Brasil Contempordneo (Bodies, Pleasures, Passion: The Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil). Folha de Silo Paulo, the largest (more than 1 million copies on Sundays) Brazilian newspaper and arguably the most influential too, is an example of the liberal posture of much of the Brazilian press. Folha goes a little further though than any other major publication. Although calling itself a family paper it frequently prints four letter words without the American subterfuge of using ellipsis or dashes so the reader can fill in for himself the nasty words. In its Sunday supplement called Revista da Folha the paper has dedicated several cover stories this year to titillating subjects such as the kindness of prostitutes over 40, the best places to get a date in SA° Paulo, sex initiation at 12, women who love too much, 10-year-old girls wishing to look like women, and how doctors suffer sexual harassment from their patients. These were not little notes, but the main article of the supplement running for several pages withperBRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
sonal acc unts and experts' opinions. The 'ame newspaper on Mondays publishes Folhatee , a supplement for their younger readers. The colorful ction, which had a condom as a gift a couple of Carna als ago, has a section in which psychologist Rosely S yao, 47, answers questions dealing with sex. , On Septe ber 22, for example, SayAo used her space to answer o e single letter. She is no Dear Abby and does 't back away from terms normally used in men's locker rooms. " s it normal to menstruate every 17 days? What is th story about female ejaculation? And dischar es?", asks a teenager under the headline: "Sm gma, the appearance ofthexoxota (pussy) and othe mysteries." Sayao is not the gentle kind either and tarts her answer by saying: "s there anything more mysterious for a woman than he appearance and the functioning of her body part that are related to the sexual act? Strangely we want wo en to have a good sexual life just like that. Can you beli ve that? Just for starters, how many women know the appearance of their own xoxota? Only contortionists, 'ecause to use a mirror, on purpose, to see how things ar there, few have the courage... Some women are born, grow up, have sex, have children and go into menopau e without knowing the appearance of their genitals nd their temperature... Between the small and large lab a and around the clitoris there is a substance called s egma that needs to be cleaned out every day." Folh also publishes Mais! (More!) the most authoritati cultural 'supplement of any Brazilian paper. The Sun • ay section normally dedicates several pages to Brazilian and foreign scholars who discuss philosophy, politics, economy and literature. On July 20, Mais! invited 15 of the most respected Brazilian poets to write poems dedicated to the vulva. The subject entitled "Ela" (She) Accompanied by a reproduction of Origin of the World —the 1866 painting by French Gustave Coubert shows a female frontal nude—was the cover story for the supplement. (See box with some of the poems). STRANGE DESIRES Manchete, a traditional weekly Life-style, mostly pictorial magazine, which is a favorite of hairdressers, doctors and dentist waiting rooms presents customarily scantilydressed women with their breasts showing. In one recent edition the publication dedicated se eral pages to uninhibited pictures of Hungarian-Itali porno queen Ciccialina. The eekly newsmagazine /sto E, the Brazilian equivalent of Newsweek, frequently does cover stories on behav or subjects involving sexuality. In the last few months e magazirne had covers with such titles as: "Love th t Destroys", about love stories that ended in tragedy; `Eroticism—Why D9 Brazilians Only Think About Tat"; "Crazy Desire", dealing love addiction, and "Fe ale Orgasm." Isto E , in a section of shorter notes cal ed A Semana (The Week), which opens the maga ine, always includes shots of national or foreign aked women. In dvertising the use of sex has been so prevalent in Br zil that some admen are fearing that the insistence in the theme could provoke a backlash from the cons er. That's why some people believe that a recen campaign using little children dressed as animals o sell Parmalat milk became so popular. But not fo long. As soon as Carla Perez—see more about her b low—was shown in a commercial about beer, every ody apparently forgot about the kids, making the point once more that sex keeps on selling. Brazi ian males are known for their seeming obses15
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 0 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
sion with the female derriere, known as bunda in Brazil. In the 17th Century there were already travel reports made by foreigners who mentioned what they saw as a sexual perversion, but blamed it on "the fleshy loins and buttocks, which are an invitation to luxury". At the beginning of this century Brazil and Argentina almost broke diplomatic relations after an Argentinean lady of the night attacked a Brazilian man with a parasol. The reason? The man apparently asked for some unconventional sex act involving no missionary position. Soon after that several Argentinean hookers signed a petition asking police to forbid Brazilians from being admitted to whorehouses in Buenos Aires. Once again Brazilians were accused of lusting for buttocks. This interest in bundas has had a resurgence recently and became a national fever since the appearance of 19-year-old dancer Carla Perez, whose main asset—which she has regally insured—is her prominent buttocks. In a survey among men to find who would be the most desirable partner in bed, Carla came in first, a long distance before secondplace Xuxa. The false blonde, who js the main attraction of the E o Tchan band, has become a national heroine not only for guys of all classes but for women and children alike. Her extremely suggestive and bordering on obscene danca da garrafa (bottle dance) or danca da bundinha (little buns dance) seems to be imitated by every little girl and big girl in the country. La Perez has just launched a doll with her features and intends to start a singing career. When she was featured in Playboy's October edition last year, the magazine, which sells an average of 350,000 copies a month, sold 787,000 copies. And in January when the publication decided to insert in the magazine an oversized poster of Carla and her famous instrument, Playboy sold out on the very first day it was released. NAKED AND PROUD OF IT Talking about Playboy, in which other country does the appearance on Playboy's cover becomes a badge of 16
In Praise of the Vulva A sample of the 15 poems published by Folha de Sao Paulo: • in "Maisl," the paper's cultural supplement • Poema em Fortnade Carta ao Leitor Augusto Massi Quanto tempo custa a urn analfabeto empregar corretamente genitalia? Quantos textos urn homem de letras precisa escrever para usar boceta? Quantas primaveras uma menina leva para saltar a palavra perereca? Quando se perde a virgindade do poema? Por que tamanha tara pela metafora? Por que falar leque, buzio, for? A xoxota ndo cabe no ventre do poema? Como arrancar o cabaco da imagem? A musa tern orgasmo, menstrua, urina? Como ela se refere ao pr6prio sexo? Entre mulheres importa o tamanho da vagina? No amor e possivel sussurrar clithris? Estou cansado de tanto engenho dos ginecologistas da lingua, das propagandas de absorvente. Por que essa palavra entre os dentes? Ndo existe urn ponto intermedidrio onde se fundem o som e o sentido? Onde se fodem baixo caldo e dWionario? Quantas perguntas sem resposta. Leitor, perdoe esse perverso polimorfo, que recifra em semen, em verso, em prosa, o inexplicavel lirismo da xoxota.
• • • • How long does it take for an illiterate • to correctly use genitalia? • How many texts a man of letters • • needs to write to use cunt? • How many springs does a girl take • to bounce the word beaver? • When do you lose the poem's virginity? • Why such a degenerate lust for the metaphor? • • Why say fan, shell, flower? • Doesn't pussy fit the poem's belly? • How do you cop the image's cherry? • Does the muse have orgasm, menstruate or • • urinate? How does she refer to her own sex? : • • Among women does the vagina size matter? • When making love are you allowed to whisper • clitoris? • I am tired of so much artifice • from the tongue's gynecologists, • • from the sanitary pads ads. • Why this word between the teeth? • There is no middle ground • where sound and sense fuse themselves? • Where dirty talk and dictionary fuck each other? • • How many unanswered questions. Reader, forgive this polymorphous perverse, • • who reciphers in semen, in verse, in prose, • the unexplainable lyricism of the pussy. • Poem in Form of Letter to the Reader
Discreta Discreet Maria Rita Kehl Se finjo acreditar sempre que insistes em professar completa ignorancia daquilo que conheces desde a infancia, mas contra teu saber inda resistes, que em teu corpo a came alerta e triste nao pensa nem calcula: é pura ansia; nem atribui a menor importancia ao que faltava ali, quando me vistes.
Foi teu desejo que fez o segredo de onde teco minh'arte, feiticeira, a fim de exercitar as artes tuas; que meu vazio ndo te faca medo: pois se nao me foi dado ser inteira tampouco me terds menos que duas.
If I feign to believe when you insist on professing total ignorance of what you know since childhood but against your knowledge you resist,
'cause in your body the flesh alert and sad doesn't think or calculate: it's pure anxiety; neither does it give the minimum value to what was missing there when you saw me It was your desire that made the secret from where I weave my witch-like art, in order to exercise your arts; may my emptiness cause you no fear: because if I cannot be whole you won't have less than two either.
• • • 0 0 • • • • • • • • It. •,.• • • • • • • • • • •
*
Sex Symbols according to Datafolha What famous woman would make you totally happy sexually was the question. The four top positions are taken by blondes. In percent Dancer Carla Perez TV host Xuxa TV host Angelica TV and movie actress Vera Fisher Actress Claudia Raia TV presenter Bruna Lombardi US singer Madonna Wife, girlfriend TV actress Luiza Brunet US actress Sharon Stone
10 6 5 5 4 3 3 3 2 2
What famous man would make you totally happy sexually? TV actor Ant6nio Fagundes TV actor Mauricio Mattar Actor-singer Fabio Junior US actor Tom Cruise Husband/boyfriend Actor Jose Mayer Singer Roberto Carlos TV actor Tony Ramos Movie actor Van Damme TV actor Victor Fasano
5 5 3 3 3 2 2 2 2 2
Naughty Mini-Pocket Glossary Boceta—cunt A scene in Xica da Silva Bunda—buttocks prime time TV Cabacinho—virgin girl, cherry Camisinha—condom Caralho—prick Catecismo—(literally catechism) pornographic
on
comic-strip booklet Comer—(lit. to eat) to have sex Cu—asshole Ficar (lit, to stay)—to engage in heavy petting Fader—to fuck Gostosa (o)—(lit. tasty) sexual appealing woman (man) Gozar—to have an orgasm, to come
Paquerar—to flirt Pau—(lit. wood stick) dick Piranha—prostitute Puta—prostitute Sacanagem—filthy action, group sex
POiffl,OGRAF IA
Tesdo—horniness, sexual appealing man or woman
Transar— to, have sex Trepar—(Iit. to climb) to fuck Xoxota—Pussy Zona—red light district BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
ie
honor and the crowning achievement of a career? Brazilian Playboy sports an inordinate amount of celebrities on its covers, The magazine's main stable of talent is TV and its novela (soap opera) stars. Case in point is celebrated actress Maite Proenca, 39, who has appeared twice on the cover of Playboy, the second one after eight years of negotiation and a $500,00.0 check from the magazine, the most ever paid a model by Brazilian Playboy. Her presence on the cover and the spread inside guaranteed the magazine two record sales that only recently were broken by two other beauties (Adriane Galisteu, the girlfriend of late Formula One race driver Ayrton Senna, with 1.1 million copies in August 1995 and Carla Perez). In 1987, a Maite cover sold 630,000 copies. Her second appearance in 1996 translated into 720,000 magazines sold. One of the most prominent Brazilian sex symbols, Maite is no moralist, but she doesn't approve of what she calls the "low quality eroticism" of recent TV series and novelas. Says she: "The everythinggoes-attitude on the war for the audience has extrapolated all parameters of the reasonable. But this is just an aesthetic judgement. After all, is there anything better than sex?" Asked why topless didn't catch on in Brazil, she answered: "Because there is already so much nudity, there is a profusion of naked women. In Brazil even woman judges bare their boobies. Carnaval makes the difference. During four days everything is allowed." Maite made also TV history by being the first woman to appear in the buff in a novela. That was in 1986 and the soap opera being shown on the Manchete TV network was called Dona Beija. With the profusion of naked men and women on the little screen nowadays, naked scenes are hardly news anymore. To generate press coverage, Walter Avancini, the press savvy novela director from Manchete TV has been using such stratagems as presenting minors without clothes, and bringing celebrities from other fields, like 17
singers. Even international personalities, such as porno star Cicciolina, who participated re7 cently in the final installments of Xica da Silva—the story of a sensuous black slave who became the powerful lover of a noble during colonial Brazil—doing what she know best: exposing herself. FROM NAIF TO SLICK The all-is-a-game attitude dealing with sex is a quite recent phenomenon in Brazil. Conservative and without real freedom ofthe press until the mid-80s, the country only recently was invaded by the slick European and American hardcore porno magazines. In the '50s and '60s, for example, those looking for spicier literature made do with roughly drawn comicbook style booklets. Carlos Zefiro, who single-handedly drew some 800 ofthese coarse strips ,has become a legend. His livros de sacanagem (filthy-behavior books) also called by the mocking name of catecismo (catechisms) were sold for top cash by newsstand owners who tried to keep the product far from the eyes of alltoo-zealous law enforcement agents. The crude, graphic and very short stories were then passed and swapped between older and younger in a complicity of co-sinners. For decades nobody knew who was the person behind the character Carlos Zefiro, who stopped drawing when the military dictatorship stepped up its censorship and the showit-all sleek Danish porno mags brought an unbeatable competition around 1968. The catecismos continued to be reprinted though for the nostalgic fans. The mystery around Carlos Zefiro ended in 1991 when Playboy magazine revealed that its author was a circumspect public servant from Rio de Janeiro by the name of Alcides Caminha, whose children never suspected his naughty activity. Caminha died of a stroke in 1992, just nine months after having allowed his cover to be blown. His work gained respectability and became known to a new generation when pop sensation Marisa Monte decided to use some of his drawings to illustrate Barulhinho Born (Good Little Noise), her latest CD release. As expected the American version of Montes's album had to scrap all the salacious images. For a country in which 16% of the people are illiterate, where a best-seller is many times
From the Hit Parade Casa da madame Henrique Lima from the Virguloides E pedreiro, é pintor, encanador na casa da madame A madame paquera o vizinho com medo de dar vexame A madame é casada corn urn cara muito rico Mas ela gosta é da pa do pedreiro, pinta o sete corn o pincel do pintor, pega no cano do encanador e na carteira do marido Ta todo mundo aqui so pensando naquilo Ta todo mundo aqui colando o suvaco do umbigo Aqui td ficando tudo muito facil cada urn faz o que quer A mulher que traiu seu marido, que traiu a sua mulher E ela pensa que é esperta mas tern urn chifre exuberante Pois o marido dela corn a empregada tern romance Ta todo mundo aqui sO pensando naquilo Ta todo mundo aqui colando o suvaco do umbigo
Medico safado Henrique Lima from the Virguloides A minha irma vivia passando mal Ninguem sabia o que ela tinha Foi parar no hospital La o Doutor disse: voce vai ficar curada Por favor, tire a roupa s6 pra eu dar uma examinada E o medico arrancou... 0 medico arrancou o 'bap dela que dola Operacao gostosa Nem precisou anestesia E assim ela gemia: ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai e gemia ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui A minha mae falou: mas que medico safado, deixou a coitada no escracho do regaco Logo depois, aquele brucho ficou inchado E o proprio doutor falou: pode deixar que eu faco o parto Porque ele arrancou... 0 medico arrancou o baco dela que doia Operacao gostosa Nem precisou anestesia E assim ela gemia: ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai e gemia ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui Ai, Doutor, nao da pra ir mais rapido?
18 BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
a work that sells as little as 5,000 copies, Brazil seems more than well se -ved by some 150 erotic magazine titles. The -rated video industry—the national output is still smal and amateurish—is doing brisk business in mostly, Am rican porno Movies with 2.4 million tapes being corn ercialized every year. This represents a $50-millio -dollar market. What it lacks in technology Brazilians often more than make p in ingenuity. Consider for example the new video introductions being offered by Expresso Visual fro Sao Pilo. Those interested in some action can film their "classified ad" as a "video postal" as it is called. Instead of giving measurements and descriptions of their, sexual tools and desires people can simply videotape what they have to offer. No face is shown though and the first contact is made through a post office box. It is extremely tough to compete with the volume and sophistication of the smut being exhibited by Americans on the Internet and many times is simply easier to be a consumer of this erotic-pornographic material. But despite the Yankee superiority in the technology of porno, some Brazilian sites have appeared to how at least in some pages the domestic product. M ny of these sites are maintained by 13 to 14 year-olds ho state their age on the page and then advise that those ho are less than 18 leave site unseen. A search in Ci de?, the Brazilian Yahoo, for the word sex reveals 92 occurrences of the term in national web pages. Mos ofthem, however, do not dedicate the whole site to erot images. Gostos , which means tasty but it is also often used to designat a curvaceous and fleshy female, is one of these effo u. Keeping with the Brazilian spirit, Gostosa .gostosa.com) is an amateur page that doesn't (http:// charge its u ers. Its creator is 19-year-old student Rodrigo Coutinho argues from Olinda, state ofPernambuco, in the north ofthe country. His parents know and approve of his effort. But we wouldn't guess their professions. The father is a doctor and the mother a police chief. THE FIRE WITHIN How to explain the highly erotically-charged atmosphere of Brazil's landscape? The most obvious response: it is a trop ical land. Sun and little clothes are indeed an explosive concoction for the libido. But there are more elaborate and scientific explanations. Anthopologist Roberto da Matta, an expert in Brazilian behavior, for example, believes that there are a series of factors involved in all this nat onal hominess. "There is no single explanMion for this cult of eroti-
From the Hit Parade Madam's House
It's bricklayer, it's painter, it's plumber at the madam's house Madam flirts with the neighbor Afraid of being caught Madam is married with a very rich guy But what she likes is the bricklayer's scoop she paints the town red with the painter's brush, she takes the plumber's pipe and the husband's wallet Everybody here only thinks about that Everybody here is gluing the bellybutton's armpit Everything here is getting too easy everyone does what he wishes The woman who betrayed her husband, who betrayed his wife And she thinks she is smart but she has an exuberant horn 'Cause her husband Has an affair with the maid Everybody here only thinks about that Everybody here is gluing the bellybutton's armpit Naughty Doctor My sister was always feeling ill Nobody knew what she had She ended up at the hospital There the doctor said: You gonna be cured Please, take off your clothes just for a little exam And the doctor picked... The doctor copped her cherry, which was hurting Delicious operation It didn't need anesthesia And she moaned like this: ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, aL ai, ai, ai, ai and moaned ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui My mother said: what a naughty doctor he left the poor girl in a sticky wicket Soon after that animal was swollen And the doctor himself said: Leave it to me, I'll do the delivery Because he picked... The doctor picked her cherry, which was hurting Delicious operation It didn't need anesthesia And she moaned like this: ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai, ai and moaned ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, ui, Uj, ui Alas, doctor, can't you go faster? .11
NMI BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
Excerpt from Tereza Batista Home From the Wars by Jorge Amado, translated by Barbara Shelby, Avon Books During that century-long, brief night, all was repetition, and yet the repetition was new, a discovery. Dan, still kneeling, lifted his hands to her breasts, while his lustful mouth drifted from the scar to her navel, into which his tongue darted, a dagger of a caress. His hands slid from her breasts down her torso to her waist, groping along the curve of her hips, the plateau of her buttocks, the columns of thighs and legs. On her feet the copper took on the greenblack patina of bronze. Dan's hands rose again to take Tereza's and make her kneel down. They embraced as they knelt face to face, the girl's lips parted imploringly. They lay down as they kissed, and their legs intertwined; stone breasts throbbed against a velvety thicket; soft thighs were clasped between the youth's taut muscles. Dan's impatient hand felt inside her pants and reached the black garden where the golden rose was asleep and languishing—in that mystery of mysteries the copper turned to gold. Oh, love! Tereza said to herself again, still too fearful to repeat it aloud. The girl's unskilled hand timidly touched the angel's ringlets, then with gathering courage moved down his face, then across his neck and shoulder, to end up triumphantly in the down of his chest. Daniel squatted in front of Tereza and slipped off her last flowered garment, covering with one hand the garden of black hair concealing the coffer and the rose. He stood up and pulled off his shorts, Tereza looked up at him as she lay and contemplated the Angel drawn up to his full height in celestial splendor: the sweet meadow of tawny ringlets and the sword upraised. Oh, love! He lay down again beside her, the weight of his thigh on hers, the hair on his chest like ermine, plush and velvet to Tereza's playful fingers, as Dan's left hand wandered from one breast to the other, squeezing the swelling nipples, which swelled still more when his mouth sucked at them before greedily devouring the whole breast, crushing the stone in the suction of a kiss and then with intoxicating words: Give me your milk, I m your baby and I want to suckle at your breast. Daniel found the right words then, probably the same worn words he had always used, but now they were spoken without artifice, without hypocrisy, without cunning, and became new again in the simplicity and sweetness and shyness of that peerless night: My love, pretty doll, little girl, silly little thing, my life, menina, minha menina. His mouth whispered tender things into her ear, his lips touched her earlobe and his teeth bit into it, I'm going to eat you up, every last bit of you, his tongue went into the feverish shell of her ear, and how many times did Tereza think she would faint? Tereza's hand clutched his arm and shoulder and plunged into the hair on his chest, her mouth learned how to kiss and her tongue throbbed voraciously. Daniel's right hand was still in possession of the black tuft where the coffer with the golden rose was concealed. One finger, his index finger, escaped from his band and fled inside Tereza, penetrated her subtly, tenaciously; oh, love! Tereza sighed and shuddered again how could deadly duty be transformed into such happiness? The girl's hand moved awkwardly, irresolutely over the Angel's willowy body, and he led it to the soft, tawny field, to the gleaming sword. Tereza touched it with her fingertips. It was made of flowers and steel... she grasped it in her hand. Daniel unveiled the mysterious coffer and its rose blossomed in the warmth of a lighted ember, the first. The sparks spread to her nipples, her panting lips, her bitten ear, along her thighs, to the, vale of her belly and the fold of her buttocks. The flower throbbed, the sword flamed. Tereza opened her legs, the thighs of a girl who was a woman at last. It was she who untied the knot, she who offered and gave herself. No one told her to do it, for the very first time, and she was not afraid. Daniel bestowed a kiss on the tuft of black hair before setting off with the girl toward the revelation of life and death, it would have been bliss to die then when St. John's Eve was consumed in the bonfires of love and Tereza Batista was born again. Oh, love! she repeated in the beginning, at the end, oh love.
Excerpt from Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, by Jorge Amado, translation, by Harriet de Onis, Alfred A. Knopf In the living-room the doors of heaven opened wide, and a song of rejoicing burst forth. "Who ever heard of screwing in a nightgown?" Dona Flor as naked as he, each dressing and completing himself in the nudity of the other. A fiery lance ran through her. For the second time Vadinho had made off with her honor, the first when she was a virgin, now that she was married (and had there been other opportunities he would have taken advantage of them). Off they went through the meadows of the night to the edge of dawn. Never had they found such pleasure in one another: so free, so fiery, so gluttonous, so delirious. Ah, Vadinho, if you felt hunger and thirst, what about me, on that limited bland diet, without salt or sugar, the chaste wife of a respectful, restrained husband? What do I care about what people think of me? What do I give for my honor as a married woman? Take all this in your burning mouth, which tastes of raw onion, burn in your fire my innate decency, rend with your spurs my former modesty: I am your bitch, your mare, your whore. They came and went, and hardly were they back when they were off again, going and returning. So much longing and so many goals to achieve, all won, all repeated. Insolent and beloved, foul and beautiful, Vadinho's voice was in her ear, saying so many indecent things, recalling the joys of other days. "Do you remember the first time ! touched you? The Carnival groups were coming through the square, and you leaned up against me..." "It was you who put your arm around me and ran your hand down me ..." He ran his hand down her and recognized her: "You have the tail of a siren, your belly is the color of copper, your breasts of avocado. You have put on weight, Flor, you are more filled out, you are delicious from your head to your feet. Let me tell you, I have picked a lot of cherries in my life, a good crop, but there is no cunt that can compare with yours, it is the best of all, I swear that to you, my Flor." "What does it taste- of?" Dona Flor asked, shameless and cynical. "Of honey and pepper and ginger." 20
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
cism," he told Lsto E, "But the truth is that Brazilians are absolutely fascinated by sex." And he presents his theory Gostesa Home Page - Rodrigo Coutinho Marques - Netscape RriE.7 based on the promiscuity of the colonial Brazilian society with the Portuguese colonizer often taking Black women slaves and Indians to bed : "In few places the master's house was so close to the slaves' quarters. The sexual encounter was very important to Brazilian society and it denounced a lack of moral in those times. But that was what made possible for the country to be invented by the Portuguese." Sex tourism, an activity that brings planeloads of Estejd sempre presente mostly Europeans to the north of the country is being nd rid,' de algueu 11! fought with ads, billboards and posters in airports, threatening prison for those having sex with minors. :leo 2- Niemen, 23- Setembro de 1997 But, as revealed recently by Folha d'e Sei0 Paulo, domestic cases of sex tourism also involving minors are on the increase. The new sexual pole is the Pantanal, a wetlands Crissoes Coppight 0 1997 Gostosa Home Page region in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The sexual Rodrigo Corairtho Marques activity is being disguised as fishing trips since the region has been known for a long time as an area for angling. In many cases, children and adolescents are hired for periods up to two weeks to spend the time with tourists from all over the country, but mainly from Sao Paulo. A Unicef study has identified in the area 65 lodgings that are front for whorehouses. Folha presents what seems to be a typical establishment: it is a hotel on the banks of the River Paraguai in the city of Porto Murtinho. The place has 18 rooms all with air conditioning and frigobar. More than 40 prostitutes work there and on a busy night as many as 250 men visit the place. The owner told TO ANY AIRPORT IN BRAZIL the paper about his pride of having illustrious clients staying there, including well-known singers, actors, businessmen and soccer players. All this blatant eroticism can FULL CONTAINER OR LESS be intimidating for some. And TO ANY PORT IN BRAZIL there are matchmaking services ready to help those who for lack (EXCELLENT CONTAINER RATES) of time or skills are not able to get a date. Matrimonial agencies as they are sometimes called are flourishing in Brazil. One of the largest ones, Happy End, from Sao Paulo is getting, according AIR/OCEAN FREIGHT ••• SHIPPER'S DOOR PICK-UP to their owners 200 new clients a month, people who may pay up CUSTOMS CLEARANCE (INCL. ALL DUTIES) 11 to $5,000 to be part of their quite exclusive listing. This is a far cry from 1992 when not more than 30 people a month were joining the service. The list has grown to 3,400 Brazilians and 1,400 Americans. The price, which starts at $1,000 for the younger candidates gets more expensive the older people get. A new plan has now been introduced to lnternauts at the address http://www.happyend. com.br. The Internet service costs $135 for two months of membership. The Clube do Amor Perfeito (Perfect Love Club) is doing similar work for the less • affluent.
BRAZIL SPECIALIST BEST SERVICE + BEST RATES AIR - IATA 01-1-9279-012 OCEAN- FMC 3853
AIR EXPORT
OCEAN EXPORT
THE BEST FULL PACKAGE SERVICE DOOR DELIVERY TO BUYER IN BRAZIL
TOICRDOWN. FREIGHT CO, 12533 CRENSHAW BLVD - HAW-THORNE, CA 90250
TEL: (310) 973-7112 FAX: (310) 973-7113 E-mailti@touchdownco.com
VISIT OUR WEB SITE: ht!p://www.touchdownco.corn CALL JULIET - FALAMOS PORTUGUES
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
21
LACK OF STANDARDS e artic e my at een e • zeve. o in yourJanuary 1997 issue ("Back Home-) is to me surprising. She seems so ignorant about the realities and contrasts in Brazil. I am a Brazilian who has been living in Europe for the past 10 years and am always surprised to see how Brazil keeps up with technology. The regional differences in Brazil are impressive and to take Bahia and Alagoas (one of the poorest States) as an example of Brazil is bad. It is like taking the US for Louisiana. I wish you had some better quality standards in the articles you publish. By the way, I was happy to see the amount of information available on your WEB site (http://www.brazzil.com). Flowever, the design is poor. It loads miserably slow and the frames are not well placed. The layout is bad. Please do consider some dramatic changes in your web site. I am a professional Internet software consultant in Switzerland and if you need any advice, just let me know. Paulo Cysne Via Internet, Switzerland LOST IN TRANSLATION enjoye your artic e on II razi an female singers very much and! agree with you that recently the most important singers have been all female. What! think you overlooked in your article though is the tremendous contribution these artists had from the opposite sex when it was time to compose. After all Marisa Monte's best songs are with Nando Reis and now she sings almost exclusively Carlinhos Brown's songs. Adriana Calcanhoto's first record was a flop and she only started developing songwriting skills after com posing with the likes of Antonio Cicero, Arnaldo Antunes and Pericles Cavalcanti. Leila Pinheiro has had enormous success with her recent album of songs by Guinga and Aldir Blanc. Cassia Eller isn't much of a composer at all, so she relies on the works of Renato Russo and the late great Cazuza whom I've had the immense pleasure of working with. Also when you mentioned Zelia Duncan you stated she composed all the material for her recent album. Well it so happens that I composed 8 of those songs (OK, so now you know why I even bothered to write in the first place). Zelia wrote the lyrics to those songs but that hardly makes her a composer in the classical sense of the word now, does it? Well now that I set the record straight, let me wish you good luck on your future articles. Who -knows maybe even about the real composers behind the singers. Best wishes to you and your publication. Christiaan Oyens Via Internet, Brazil LET THEM READ MUSH Your article on Carla Perez and E o
Tchan in the February edition was brilliant, and simply reflects Brazil's exciting and open attitude towards dance, music, and sex. More articles like this please, and may the prudes stick to Reader s Digest! Robin Nuttall Nuffield College Oxford, United Kingdom TOO KIND TO RIO I am a Brazi ian rom uriti la marrie to an American and live in Haula, Hawaii. I didn't know Brazzil until a neighbor "found" some issues at a local library and I was very happy to see a magazine with news about Brazil. The only thing that made me sick was to see the way Rio de Janeiro was described. It is a crime to send tourists to a city that obviously does not have (and never had.) the infrastructure to meet the demand. It is time to tell the truth because Rio is giving Brazil a bad name: uncivilized, promiscuous, and, naturally, very violent. Please show the things that we can be proud of, not a bunch of semi-nude aborigines, who at the first opportunity will do away with your wallet. During the 20 years that! lived in sao Paulo I was never robbed. But the two times I had to go to Rio... Please, show that Brazil is more than Carnaval and victoria regia. Eveline Altheia Bacon Haula, Hawaii CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF BRAZIL am rom ng an., . ut ive in t e United States. Last year, for the first time I had a chance to go to Brazil. It was fantastic. I have lived in many different places in the world, but I never felt so comfortable as I did in Brazil. When I arrived there the first time I told myself: 'this is my home.' Since then I went back in February (Imagine, Carnaval for the first time. That was unbelievable). I flew there again in June and I am going back this October. I was very happy to see your page on the WEB because 1 want to know everything I can about Brazil. I have been practicing my Portuguese for 10 months, but here in Tennessee it is impossible to find a teacher or a course of Portuguese. I can't wait for my first issue of Brazzil. Brian Tigger Via Internet, Tennessee PORTUGUESE, PLEASE ongratu ations or you interesting an beautiful site. I would like to suggest that you create a Portuguese version of it in order to allow Brazilians to read it too. That, I am sure, would bring more visitors to your page. I publish Revista Virtual Valeparaba, a
25¢ A COPY
magazine about Vale do Paraiba in Sao Paulo, a region that comprises 39 cities. It would be an honor to have a link from your site to ours at http://www.virtualvale. com.br. —Celso Carpinetti Soo Paulo, Brazil SEE OCTOBER' 96 I aina current subscriber in need of the following information: I am considering living in Brazil. Couldyou please tell me which past issues have dealt with the problems facing foreigners in Brazil? I am particularly interested in how an American can establish permanent residency there. Are these issues available for purchase, or can they only be accessed through the Internet? Could you also suggest some books or other resources on this topic? Please note that I will be leaving on my trip in a few weeks, therefore I will greatly appreciate your prompt response. Lewis Levine San Francisco, California GOING FOR SECONDS I love your magazine. I am far, far away from Brazil here in the desert of New Mexico and you give me a taste of my favorite country on earth. Andreia fluff Spencer Albuquerque, New Mexico GOOD FOR BUSINESS I invest in several Brazilian companies such as Telebras, Petrobras, Brahma, and that's why I enjoy reading about Brazil. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso is privatizing Brazilian industries and this seems to be beneficial to the country. Good luck to the people of Brazil. Thomas Dalton Lakehills, Texas ONE MORE LINK The award-winning Christian Science Monitor newspaper's daily web site has linked a story to your amazing Brazzil site. It is an article on the War of Canudos. We know our readers will be interested in looking at your site—and we think your visitors would enjoy our article at http:// www.csmonitor.com/durable/1997/10/02/ feat/feat. I .html Christine Roane Via Internet Can't you find Brazzil at your Brazilian consulate? Don't ask us why, ask the consulate.
biazzil Allow 5 to
For info: (213) 255-4953 E-Mail: brazzil@brazzil.com
7 weeks to receive your first issue.
No back issues sold. 'slake check to Brazzil and mail it to:
SORRY, NO CREDIT CARD FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS
BRAZZIL - P.O. Box 42536 - Los Angeles, CA 90050-0536
3
I'll take I year (12 issues) El NEW
RENEWAL
WHY NOT SEND A GIFT TO 10, 100, EVERYONE YOU KNOW? NO COUPON NEEDED NAME: COMPANY:
You are invited to participate in this dialogue. Write to: Letters to the Publisher P.O.Box 42536 Los Angeles, CA 90050-0536 or send E-mail to: brazziliibrazzil.com brazilnewsfiaolcom Please, include a phone number in the event vke need to reach you. Thanks! 22
ADDRESS: CITY, ST, ZIP: TEL.:
E-MAIL:
Yearl rate for Canada & Mexico: S15. All other countries: S18 (surface mail). BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
SHIPPING TO:
BRAZIL - ARGENTINA AND SOUTH AMERICA
RNA BRAXIL 4 Be.T
114 h/Y Recommended hr , g:
KAec-Radie g the IA Pin Rectourant Critics
UNIQUE DINING EXPERIENCE TO BRAZILIAN BEAT
FALAMO$ PORTUGUES
FREE STORAGE V: ALL RISK INSURANCE EXPORT PACKING
NEAR DISNEYLAND \HOME MADE BUFFET • CHURRASCO RODIZIO
LIVE BRAZILIAN MUSIC FRIDAY & SATURDAY NIGHTS Call for Reservations
(714)77'S • 0266
Open Tuesdays .1nru Sundays Visa • MC • ATM
•V HOUSEHOLD GOODS • SEA & AIR SHIPPING • ANTIQUES & FINE ART 1161457
Vf CARS
821 North Euclid, Anaheim
BY.:••BRAZIIIL--,•ROStauront. OU q4*., 'PAT ALL •
E-MAIL: info@omegashipping.com
s-Axtiazovv"'
PLEASE VISIT OLTINU3SITE
www.omegashipping.com
Beef, chicken, pork, sausages flame
FOR FREE ESTIMATES CALL
'broiled and seiverfon
L 1 ‘N-OMEGIL 18( 201(1? 6241 64 2 4 "
SHIPPING (CA.),INC. 4379 SHEILA ST - LOS ANGELES, CA 90023
Tuesdays ,' .Fri.ciaya;: 11:30 am 8-30 pm Monda ys c losed •(Mond Set..&SLih.:.11200 . -
1615 Cobrillo Ave.
n N ru E VV
1104
-
Torrance, CA 9050]
Wilshire Blvd. - Santa Monica, CA 90401 (310) 393-0447
Eiri m
CANON • XEROX • SHARP • MITA • MINOLTA • KONICA • LANIER • COPYSTAR ' I
, ALL BRAND COPIERS
sig=r,
Established 1985
Authorized Dealer AfIllid COPYSTAR
Canon Rum
ak Nor
Feijoada on weekends Executive lunch from Monday to Friday
1111111111All PRODUCTS AVAILABLE
11 am - 4 pm - $5.95 Open Every Day:]] am - 10 pm WE ACCEPT VISA, MASTERCARD & ATM CARDS
SUCOS DE MITA (ACHIM, CAJU, ETC" SUARATIA, GOIABADA, HOMO DE PIMENTA, CHOCOLATE, CAR, CHIMARRAO, SABOTIETE NEBO h MUCH MORE
(310) 837-8957
MINOLTA
10831 Venice
Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90034 (2 blocks W. of Overland)
ABDICKIIINIF
SHARP®
NO TRAVEL CHARGE • LOW FLAT RATE NON-PROFITS: USE YOUR 503/503-C STATUS FOR REAL SAVINGS
t i,
e
ogo
l knsc olDisit ri Li.siJoI Sf surIl tee etesM
Years s
FACTORY TRAINED TECHNICIANS
Fast Response • Same Day Service WE SERVICE ALL MAJOR BRANDS
(818)
In The Indus:yan • •-• ora. iz.,--
706-1120
Emalltri Re:
"Ilbral hrs nits "4""1 RICOH • TOSHIBA • SAVIN • PANASONIC • KODAK a PITNEY BOWES 30313 own000 wan, SUITE 30 . mom
LINGUA- BIFE - FRANGO
e eystetya Fn.5gMAC AX HINES
SALES • SERVICE • SUPPLIES • LEASE • RENTALS *NIERWA
FAX -818-7061506
The Peal Flom ernacle Nlea Authentic Brasilia Food Fresh squeezed juices No Dairy - No Fat
BRAZILIAN CUISINE 4809 W. MARINE AV LAWN DALE, CA 90260 ONE BLOCK FROM THE 405 FWY
(310) 676-9962
OPEN 7 DAYS FROM 10 AM TO 9 PM - ON SAT. AND SUN. CLOSES AT 10 PM COMBINATION OF COUPONS NOT ALLOWED
FREE
FREE
FREE
2 BOLINHOS DE BACALHAU WHEN YOU BUY A BRAZILIAN
1 CAN , OF GUARANA WHEN YOU
BUY A BRAZILIAN
DISH BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
RABADA - BACALHAU FEUQADA AOS FINAIS Df SEMANA FILE A CUBANA - CAMAPO WAND BIFE E FRANGO A ROLE
SPEND S5 OR MORE
DISH AND GET THE 2ND FOR HALF THE PRICE 23
I
nhabitants of the year of the Lord 1997, we have witnessed in Brazil the crumbling of one of the most fragile myths created by the Brazilian intelligentsia. Or maybe we should call it stupiditsia. The myth in question is the monoglot senator Darcy Ribeiro, who built his entire life and career on lies. He died last February and left a posthumous piece of trash, Mestico e que é born (Mixed Breed is Best) (Editora Revan Publishers, Rio, 1997). Before we get into the senator's swindling, let's read some of his pearls of wisdom. In this book, Darcy is interviewed by some of the most illustrious Tupiniquim (1) "communossaurs", like Ant6nio Callado, Antonio Houaiss, Eric Nepomuceno, Ferreira Gullar, Oscar Niemeyer, Zelito Viana and Zuenir Ventura. It's important to list these names. If it were not for the testimony of these friends of his, one would have trouble believing the following paragraphs. One of the most surprising revelations of this posthumous work by the illustrious humanist from Minas Gerais is the pleasure he derived from beating women. Oscar Niemeyer, one of the most solid bastions of Stalinism in Brazil, kicks the ball and Darcy scores the goal:
The Sting OR THE ADVENTURES OF A BRAZILIAN CHEAT OR HOW DARCY RIBEIRO BUILT HIS OWN PEDESTAL
Anthropologist and Senator Darcy Ribeiro died on February 17. He was considered by most an accomplished educator, novelist, anthropologist, and politician. President Fernando Henrique Cardoso went to his funeral and even declared a national threeday mourning period in the days following his death. Was he only a façade? Was Ribeiro the shrewdest cheater Brazil has ever seen? That's what this article wants to prove. JANER CRISTALDO
24
OSCAR NIEMEYER—There was a story you told me once which was more complicated, that somebody threw you on the railroad tracks. DARCY— It was in Paris, the first time 1 went to Paris, in 1954. There I found an incredible thing, a girl, of Turkish-Lebanese origin, from Rio Claro, in Selo Paulo. At 18 she had won the French language prize, she was a student. I arrived from Switzerland, I had spent a month in Switzerland, working. When I arrived in Paris I met the girl by chance, I liked her company and started hanging out with her. She was terribly embarrassed of her virginity—French women are much more concerned with their virginity than Brazilian women, a French girl from a bourgeois family, that is— but as she was living on the Rive Gauche, she was embarrassed of being a virgin there, because the boys fooled around and they wanted to fuck. I wanted to fuck, too, but she refused to fuck. I was already bored with her and she kept coming after me like a tick, holding on to me, but wouldn't fuck with me. She came to see me in my room at the boarding house but wouldn't fuck. A room at a boarding house, in those days, in Paris! This girl was very much ashamed of being a virgin, but very scared. So, I kept going out with her, sightseeing in Paris. On a certain day, we went to catch the last subway, we had to catch it or we would have to walk several blocks. We went to the subway, we were at the edge of the subway, waiting, and she knew that when we arrived she was going to be fucked, otherwise I would bust her head. Soon 1 would be leaving, so this was the day for her to be fucked, she was very nervous. Then the bitch suddenly threw me down the subway tracks, way down. That stuffis electrified, I could have died! I kept trying to get up, hanging by my hand at the edge of the platform, and she stepped on my hand. I was furious and I beat her up. HOUAISS—You managed to climb up and BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
get out of there? DARCY—I managed to climb up— today I wouldn't be able to— with her stepping on my hand. I really beat her up, man! She was real quiet, cried a lot and then she agreed and I fucked her. That's why 1 was just now, recently, walking with my chief of staff, who is a very good-looking woman, and her husband, in the market of Montes Claros and I went and said to one of those women vendors—many of them know me: — How are you? She asked: — Who is this, your wife? — No; she works with me but doesn't want to fuck. — Beat her up and she will. Not satisfied with proclaiming his qualities as an emeritus brutalizer of women, the senator proceeds to brag about his sexual adventures as an ethnologist, when he scored some "decadent Indians". This time the one kicking the ball is the also deceased Antonio Callado: CALLADO—Darcy, the first time I went to see the Indians, in 1950 or '51, it had been long established that you don't fuck Indian girls so as not to mess things up too much, it was more or less traditional, so that they wouldn't start fucking all the Indian girls. So much so that when I was there, Leonardo Villas-Boas was already at Fundacao Brasil Central (Central Brazil Foundation) and he was being forced to leave the Indian Protection Service because he had fucked an Indian girl, whom he married. When did you arrive there for the first time? Was this law already in effect? DARCY—/t 's true. I started with the Indians in 1946. This law exists to this day, because of Rondon and classical Anthropology. I was educated not to have sex with the female Indians because, for the anthropologist, in my case specifically, long research work was difficult. Nowadays the women are already doing it with the Indians, the women anthropologists like to have sex with them, to create intimacy. They are really doing it, with them too. Poor guys, the Indians are human too. So they do it. And since they do it with the men, the men also started to fuck with the Indian girls, first-generation anthropologists. (..) I spent many months with the Indians and I always managed to have one. For instance, 1 never fucked the Urubus-Kaapor girls because I was doing work with the Kaapors, but I used to fuck the Tembes, who were some decadent Indian women found up there. Let's see this brilliant interpretation of Genesis proposed by the senator: DARCY—By the way, I need to tell you about a very interesting thing that I have developed recently, kind of literary but very nice. It's a story. about Eve, I've been meditating about Eve and discovered that Eve is a Trotskyist. She is the first revolutionary in history. We owe fundamental things to Eve. First, Eve created the fuck. Adam was a perfect jackass, standing there, with that dangling apparatus of his and didn't know what to do. Eve said: —Come here, Adam dear. He put it inside her and itwas such a good come, he had the orgasm, and when he came, the big angel descended and said: — God doesn't like it, God is pissed off at you. Out! And he ran them out of Paradise. Paradise was shit, it was not plastic because there was no plastic yet, it was made of papier mache. Because the flower is the plant's BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
genital orga , it fucks, there could be no flowers fucking in paradise. t was papier mache. When the big angel ran them out oft ere, he ordered: —Let's ake communism, let's build Paradise out there. Eve also eft to make communism. And sinc we are talking biblical themes, it's worth having a loo at the concept Darcy Ribeiro has of Jews: DARCY The Jews are such sons-of-bitches that from time to time hey name the baby girl Lilith. Lilith is the sinful Eve, t e one that offers the wandering, fiery little pussy. Let's ad it that these confessions were the result of a lot of alcoho in the brain. Which by the way renders them more serious in vino, veritas. However, we must suppose that the mon i glot senator was not drunk when he wrote in Folha de Sao Paulo: "The expansion ofthe white man was the worst ca strophe in human history". If this St tement had been made by some illiterate individual w th no better concept of History or Geography, the phr se would simply be another piece of nonsense like so many others reproduced daily by the media. But it so ha pens that it was uttered by a Senator of the Republic, w ose ideas, profession, life and career—in spite of his onoglotism and lack of academic education—were d by Europe. Considering the source, such nonsense de erves some consideration. That Wh .te Europeans killed, both in their continent and in the continents they conquered, no one in their sound mind an deny. But killers were also the Chinese, the Mongols the Turkish, the Arabs, the Japanese. Blacks and Indians also killed and still do. As for as human beings are c ncerned, the only broad statement we can make witho t incurring in any fallacy is that the Green people, as w 11 as the Blue people, have never killed their fellow creat res. Due to the simple fact that there are no green peopl or blue people. The first an to create embryos of universities all over the world— nd this happened 300 years before Christ— set out killi g and conquering peoples, trampling them from Maced inia to Asia. Were it not for Alexander, the dialogue bet een East and West would have been delayed by centuries There were times when cultures spread by the sword a d those times are not very distant from our times. So th European conqueror stifled the Neolithic from Pindor • ma (2)? Good! If it were not for that, Darcy Ribeiro would not have had access to the cobalt bomb which in the '70s helped extend his life considerably. The Eur pean white man killed and destroyed, as all men kill and destroy, except Green and Blue men. But he also discove ed penicillin and nuclear fission, went to the moon, is alr ady contemplating Mars and its electronic eyes are no approaching Pluto. He gave us Mozart and Vivaldi, ope a and cinema, communications and the computer. Even hristianity, in spite of its medieval murdering fury, has bequeathed us an aesthetics which cannot be thrown in th famous trash dumpster of history. There are no terms of omparison between the Notre Dame and a umbanda (3 yard. NO one can confuse a native's hut with the Eiffel to er. Even less the Paiakan Caiapo (4) chief with Casano a. To disrni s the expansion of the white man, that is, of European cu ture, is to deny Socrates and Plato, Cervantes and Shakes eare, Dante and da Vinci, Schliemann and Champollio , Perna° de Magalhaes and Armstrong, Pasteur and Ein tein. Not to mention Hegel and Marx, who are, ultima ely, the foundation for Darcy Ribeiro's 25
Weltanschauung. If we accept his fundamentalist view, then Van Gogh's and Bosch's canvases better be left to those who collect paper for industrial recycling. May the great museum collections be used to build dams in Holland, the Louvre and the Hermitage be closed, libraries, publication collections and film collections burned and all computers and parabolic dishes forbidden, as it is already happening, by the way, in the Islamic world. The first measure of the Taliban fanatics, when they first entered Kabul, in Afghanistan, was to destroy all television sets. White technology transported Darcy Ribeiro in its jets to the countries where he tasted "the bitter caviar of exile". When he had to choose a refuge, he favored countries of White culture, the same culture which expansion, according to his accusation, resulted in the worst catastrophe in history. When death approached, Darcy chose to bite the hand that fed him. Hieratic, enjoying the absolution that death confers, he died in an aura of sanctity. But that is not a reason to forgive the infamies which he uttered posthumously, thanks to the editorial effort of his "compagnons de route" (journey companions). There is an explanation for this amount of nonsense delivered by an intellectual of international fame: throughout his life, Darcy was a fraud. Besides bragging that he was a monoglot, he boasted as his university degree a diploma from the School of Sociology and Politics in sao Paulo, a course which was never recognized by the Ministry of Education and Culture. In the résumé he sent to the Senate, he smartly entitled himself an ethnologist, an occupation which, like those of anthropologist, prostitute or psychoanalyst, is still not regulated in Brazil. He was awarded three federal retirement benefit packages, one of those by the University of Brasilia, where he never had one single student and where he was never employed. As if this were not enough, he used to say that he founded the University of Brasilia. He did not. Nor did he ever teach there, although he retired from it. He also said he founded the National University of Costa Rica. He didn't do that either. By the way, there is no such university. He bragged to have been awarded a Honoris Causa diploma from the Sorbonne. Pure intellectual fraud. Darcy received the Honoris Causa, in 1978, when the Sorbonne no longer existed. The diploma was conferred by the University of Paris VII and delivered in a room in the building of the former Sorbonne, which is quite different. Not to mention that the Honoris Causa diploma serves only to embellish business cards and doesn't grant any academic qualification to its carrier. Darcy knew very well that in this country where there are no better criteria for evaluating intelligence, cheating is the easiest resource for the uneducated man to prosper in life. Lying all the way, he was hoisted to a government ministry and to the Senate. Once in office, from the heights of his high school degree, the monoglot senator condemned in a single phrase the culture in whose bosom he was born and fed. In trying to escape his spiritual death, Ribeiro did not choose the tanta (5) or the oral account under the shade of 26
a baobab, but instead he chose modern printing houses assembled by the white man he so abominated. In his effort to escape physical death, which is an instinctive reaction of every human being, the anthropologist did not resort to witch doctors but to first rate hospitals. When Jesus called, he didn't seek salvation through shamans. Instead, defeated, he begged the representatives of that same culture which produced him and which he, the turncoat, later decided to abominate. The worst catastrophe in human history—"the expansion of the White man"—produced this country which in turn produced Darcy Ribeiro, and seasoned this cultural pot in which the senator, with his Mineiro (6) cleverness, built his career and prestige. Before his death, he organized a foundation to ensure that his "thoughts" would not die. Obstinate graphomaniac, he left an amount of work so voluminous that he doesn't know any more how many books he wrote nor in how many languages he has been translated. Thanks to whom? To a European called Gutenberg. It is fashionable among anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists and other olinists to systematically deny the cultural values of the West, that is, of white Culture, whose bases are in Greece and in Rome, to favor primitive cultures which oftentimes never went as far as an alphabet and, even in those places where they did, their lives today are soaked in the blood of tribal wars. More than fashionable, this tendency is a true cpnspiracy from all the defeated in History who aim their deaf resentment against the best that humanity has produced. In life, senator Darcy Ribeiro joined this immense group of sores. Dead, he became an icon. When the Tupiniquim stupiditsia hear the news that the Berlin Wall has been taken doWn, Darcy will take his deserved place, which is in the fafnous garbage dumpster of history. (1) Tupiniquim is from the Tupi (indigenous) language; it is used to mean "Brazilian" in an affectionate and sometimes pejorative manner. eSkt (2) Pindoramd = Indian name for Brazil (3) umbanda religious cult that combines AfroBrazilian rituals with Brazilian Spiritualism (4) Caiapo = Brazilian Indian tribe (5) tank*, = type of drum played by the Indians (6) Mineiro = from the state of Minas Gerais. In the original, the expression is "manha de Mineire" Janer Cristalflo is a writer, translator and journalist. He got a Ph.D. in French and Compared Literature from Universite de Is Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris III) with the thesis La Reveille Chez Albert Camus et Ernesto Sdbato (The Revolt in Albert Camus and Ernesto Sabato). He published among other books: 0 Paraiso Sexual Democrata (The Democrat Sex Paradise) (essay), Assim Escrevem os Gauchos (Thus Write the Gauchos) (anthology), A Force dos Mitos (The Power of Myths) (cronicas), Ponche Verde (Green Punch) (novel), Mensageiros das Furias (Messengers of the Furies) (essay). You can get in touch with him via his E-mail: cristal@ibm.net Translated from the Portuguese by T. Braga. Grateful to C. Edinger for proofing. BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
En loot Manioc is Brazil's answer to French fries. The tuber, also known as cassava root, was the main staple of the Brazilian natives at the time of discovery and has become an important food in all of Brazil. It is presented in several versions: as pa coca, carima, mingau, beiju, farinha de mandioca, tucupL Here, a little of the history behind the manioc and some recipes, so you can also taste this delicacy. JOAN PET RSON The coast of Brazil was already a legal possession hen the Portuguese arrived in the New World in April 1500—by chance accordi g to some accounts, having been blown off course on a voyage originally intend d for India. The rights to this land were made possible by the Treaty of Tordesillas signed by Portugal and Spain in 1494, which effectively parceled the lands of th New World between them. The new arrivals were essentially t aders, who saw little other than the plentiful dyewood called pau brasil that mig t be profitably traded in the New World. For the next several decades, occasional forays were made inland by these brazilwood merchants, or brasileiros, to obta n this commodity for which the new land ultimately was named. It was not u til the 1530s, however, that settlers began to arrive. The coastal Tupi Indians were the first aboriginal people to interact with the Portuguese, and in general, these c ntacts were peaceful. For years, settlers came to Brazil without their women—wives, if they were married, or female relatives. They s on found that the native women were far from reluctant to assume the white wome 's role in bed as well as in the kitchen. As a result, Brazilian cookery developed ith a solid native core—the heritage of these first Brazilian cooks and mothers o the first Brazilians born in the New World. Since the humid, tropical environm nt was unsuitable for wheat and several other crops the Portuguese men were accustomed to ea ing, they were forced to develop many new eating habits based on indige ous foods. Of the many foods introduced by the native cooks, the manioc uber, or cassava root, was a profound dietary change for these colonists. It as the main staple of the natives, a carbohydrate-rich food that is easy to propagate but difficult to process, at least for the bitter variety, which is p isonous when raw. It is astonishing that the Indi ns determined that these tubers were edible at all. To detoxify manioc, the t bers had to be peeled and grated and the pulp put into long, supple cylinder —called tipitis—made of woven plant fibers. Each tube was then hung ith a heavy weight at the bottom, which compressed the pulp and expr ssed the poisonous juice. The pulp could then be removed, washed and roa ted, rendering it safe to eat. The product was a toasted, coarse meal or flodr known as farinha de mandioca, which is as basic to the diet of Brazilians today as it was to the early Indians. (Invariably, it will be found as a table top condiment accompanying the salt and pepper shakers.) Starch settling out from the extracted juice was heated on a flat surface, causing individual starch grains to pop open and clump together into small, round granules called tapioca. The extracted juice, boiled down to remove the poison, was used as the basis of the sauce known as tucupi. In the not-them region of modern Brazil, several noted and delicious dishes incorporate this tradition 1 sauce. Manioc meal became many things in the han s of the Indian women. Pulverized meal was mixed with ground fish to produce a concoctio called pacoka, orpacoca as it is known today. For the children, small, sun-dried cakes calle carimd" were prepared. There was a porridge or paste known as mingau, and thin, crisp sna ks called beijus, made of either tapioca flour or dough from a non-poisonous or sweet var ety of manioc known as macaxeira or aipim. These sweet manioc tubers, which are somew at fibrous but considerably easier to prepare, were also pared, boiled for several hours to s ften them and eaten like potatoes. The popularity today of a snack of fried, sweet anioc strips, Brazil's answer to French fries, further attests to the important contribution •f this foodstuff to Brazilian cuisine by the Indians. Corn was another Indian staple that the colonis is used as a substitute for wheat. Learning from the Indians, the Portuguese made corn porrid es called acanijic, which can be found today as canjica or mugunza, and used corn husks a containers to steam a sweet mixture of corn BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
27
and coconut called pamuna, which came to be known as
pamonha. The continuing preference for manioc and corn flours over wheat is apparent in many areas of Brazil today. A great variety of these flours is available, including the fine, sweet or sour types, called polvilhos, made from tapioca starch. Cheese rolls called pdo de queijo (see recipe) made from polvilho flour and eaten while still warm are incomparable. It is clear that the Portuguese settlers early on had come to appreciate the indigenous foodstuffs that they had originally eaten out of necessity because the climate did not allow for wheat production. Eventually, they began cultivating sugar cane and in the middle of the sixteenth century had turned to Africa for slaves to work the fields. In the process, they introduced to the African continent both manioc and the Indian way of processing it into an edible form. Thus manioc took "root" in Africa also and became an important part of the foodways of many people there. For a taste treat, try the following recipes using manioc meal. This product is obtainable in specialty stores carrying Brazilian and other South American food items, and is also available in most Asian food stores.
Farofa de Manteiga Buttered manioc meal. Serves 4. This recipe is one of many ways plain manioc meal can be embellished with flavorful ingredients. 2-3 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 small onion coarsely chopped 1 egg 1 cup manioc meal 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, minced salt and pepper to taste
Sauté onion in butter until soft, but not browned. Reduce heat and add egg, stirring until scrambled and well mixed. Gradually add manioc meal until the mixture becomes golden and resembles toasted bread crumbs. Add salt and pepper and stir in parsley.
Copyright 1997, Ginkgo Press, Inc. Joan Peterson, with her husband David, are authors of
Eat Smart in Brazil: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure, the first in their "Eat Smart" series of destination cuisine guides. This guide is available from Ginkgo Press, PO Box 5346, Madison, WI 53705, $14.95 postpaid, charge (MC/Visa) or check. Tel: 608-233-5488. Fax: 608-233-0053. For further information, contact them through their E-mail: joanp@ginkgopress.com and you may also visit their Website: http://www.ginkgopress.com
Cheese Rolls - Makes 12.
These rolls are especially popular in the center-west, southeastern and southern regions of Brazil. 1 cup tapioca starch 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/4 cup water 1 teaspoon salt 1 egg 6 tablespoons plain yogurt, nonfat or regular 1 cup grated parmesan cheese
Preheat oven to 450°F. Put tapioca starch in a metal bowl. Mix oil, water and salt in a pan. Bring to a boil. Pour the sputtering mixture onto the tapioca starch carefully to protect yourself from hot spatters. Mix together with a wooden spoon. Dough will be stiff. When cool enough to touch, add egg and mix well. Blend in yogurt. When well mixed, stir in cheese. Rub hands with oil and form batter into balls. Place on a greased baking sheet. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake 25-30 minutes, or until done. The rolls puff up during baking, but become flattened when cool.
I.
.1
THANK YOU for making us #1!
MIAMI to BRAZIL $560 rt* We have space for Christmas Q.11 us now It is very limited. *RESTRICTIONS APPLY Mariza Siegert receiving first place award for Tropical Travel from VASP Brazilian Airlines
CALL TOLL FREE:
1 (888) 7BRASIL TROPICAL IATA ' N
1 (888) 727-2745 E-mail: tropical@slip.net TEL: (510) 655-9904 FAX: (510) 655-9229 4168 PIEDMONT AVE., SUITES C & D - OAKLAND, CA 94611
28
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
BRAZIL-USA International Service
BRAZIL AIR TRAVEL SIRVICES
ilbEOLLIINCE IS A HABIT.
" Empresa que voce pode Confiar"
TONY BANOS, OWNER 40 YEARS TRAVEL INDUSTRY EXPERIENCE. ,FALA-SE PorruGuts.
REVOLIJCIONARIO Programa de : Mudancas Cargas Aereas e Maritimas Pergunte sobre nosso : "PET" Pacote Economic° de Transportee Reduza drasticamente suas despesas de frete e mudancas para o Brasil.
AIR $683* RIO DE JANEIRO HOTEL PACKAGE 6 NIGHTS' BASED ON DOUBLE OCCUPANCY P/P
Gratis :
Pacote de Informacoes como preparar sua mudanca para o Brasil Tel. :(310) 542-9594 <=> Fax:(310) 542-0479
(800) 441-8515 10700 SN1TA MONICA Ono., SUITE 15 Los boas, CAUF011111A 90025. (310)4414500 fAX (310)441-8502. 0 trazg ATvd &Tweak 091
E-Mail : brazillusal@aol.com WAREHOUSE:2280-208th Street -Torrance-CA- 90501
7rir
BIOGENESIS CONSULTING • Gew,./Qx6,4,7 • cAce.-4,..tiom •
• Ao-tex•cein 2SZue44,rnent
lYterade,
• d..,deoi •
(805) 274-6179 E-mail: DrLeite4yo@aoLcom -
* By Appointment Only *
NCOMPASS OVERSEAS sniPPIN6 0920 S LA CIENEGA BLVD., INGLEWOOD, CA 90304
Dr. Tony C. Leite, N. D. Board Certified Naturopath P. 0. Box 902211 Palmdale, CA 93590
$284*
Season • Plus applicable taxes.
AIR & OCEAN FREIGHT SERVICE TO CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA GENCES BRAML Rid DE JANEIRO, SANTOS SALVADOR & BELO HORIZONTE
For Business Opportunities Get the Right Connection
Brazil - California
VICO AEREO P/ TODO 0 BRASIL NSOLIDATIONS FROM MIAMI & LA •USEHOLD GOODS MMERCIAL CARGO KING & CRATING CHECK US OUT IN THE INTERNET @
Chamber of Commerce
http:fiwww.encompass-group.com
Call Now Tel/Fax: (310) 665-0166
OFFICES IN LO ANGELES, N.Y. & MIAMI (310) 568-9586
5777 Century Blvd., Suite 1160 Los Angela, CA 90045 BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
• •
00E976E7872 29
RIO-SP
INTERNATIONAL TOURS LOS ANGELES INC.
THE BEST OF BRAZIL FOR A VERY LOW PRICE
FROM LAX
$699w (RI)
EXAMPLES:
• RESTRICTIONS APPLY
SAO PAULO/RIO/VICTORIA
$619
PORTO ALEGRE/IGUAZU
$689 $644
RECIFE/SALVADOR/MANAUS
VISIT BRAZIL 4 CITIES $444
6111-7111 (VRT..)
S Pj,A .) :0 115 P (EN
WORLD WIDE SERVICES Established 1963 - Same Ownership eirr
321 E. 2ND ST. - SUITE 1001 LOS ANGELES, CA 90012
2130 SAVVTELLE BLVD - SUITE 112 2130 LOS ANGELES CA 90025 (310) 575-4544 (ENG ONLY)
RAZIL TOURS
Visit us at http://www.braziltours.com
PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
i31 14
OTHER DESTINATIONS AVAILABLE. PLEASE CALL US, AND COMPARE OUR PRICES AND OUR SERVICES. THEY STAND ON THEIR OWN MERIT AND YOU ARE THE JUDGE.
$669 $669 $743
BUENOS AIRES SANTIAGO, CHILE MONTEVIDEO
688W. BAKER ST. - SUITE 3 COSTA MESA, CA 92626
a.
9841 AIRPORT BLVD. - SUITE 506 LA.)), CA 90045 (310) 641-4894 (ENG. ONLY)
1-800-927-8352
1-
Tel.: (818) 990-4995" Fax: (818) 990-3114
E-mail: bfoster734@aol.com 14615 Ventura Blvd Suite A Sherman Oaks, California 91403
Viaje para qualquer parte do mundo corn o jeitinho brasileiro e o padrao internacional do Cheviot Hills RIO DE JANEIRO SUPER SPECIAL PACKAGE
ONE-TIME-ONLY LOS ANGELES TO RIO DE JANEIRO OR SAO PAULO
ROUND TRIP AIR TICKETS HOTEL PACKAGE AND HALF-DAY CITY TOUR
CHEVIOT HILLS TRAVEL SERVICE
1 (800) 585E8023 311 202-6264 818 501-4426 310 837-2214 (FAX) Sua agenda brasileira em L.A. 9819 NatIonal Blvd. Ste. #1 - Los Angeles, CA 90034
VASP 30
DELTA
KOREAN AIR
VARIG
UNITED BFtAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
escapara-se-me, peixe escorregadio, por entre as maos— com a pouca Sensibilidade das mulheres para escolher o melhor—apavbra-me a ideia de passar os pr6ximos tres ou quatro dias soZinho, no meu mosteiro de quarto e sala. Algo tern de aconteer; mas o que? Espingarda engatilhada, saio a caca. Sexta-feira, fim de 0 esfomeado cacador, em todo caso, é dono de uma tarde: leve da carga da semana, que deixo atras. teoria que se baseia no fortuito, nos acasos da vida: ao Caca, este errar angustiado pelas ruas cheias do Centro? dobrar a esquina, voce pode tropecar num grande amor; o Uma colega me atrai; tentei marcar encontro corn ela, disse bom—assim como o mau—esta sempre emboscado no que gosta do namorado. Caminho a toa, o coracao cheio de caminho; e é esta dose de inesperado que da algum sabor A desespero e de uma vaga esperanca. existencia. Alguma inocente rolinha de carne branca e macia? Eta teoriazinha filha da puta de fatalista e comodista; Lanco o anzol neste remanso de gente: fisgarei descuidado mas as vezes e e acredita nela. De qualquer forma, nela tern peixinho? 0 fim de semana é sombrio. de se apegar neste momento—para nao enlouquecer. Separado da mulher corn quem vivi ano e meio, curto Exagero? E porque voces nao conhecem a fome de nosso preta solidao. Dono de meu espaco e silencio, no comeco eacador—exacerbada pela visao de apetitosas presas— gostei de ficar s6, monge em sua cela forrada de livros e doendo no baiXo ventre como uma ferida de faca. Jogador discos, docil sobre a mesa a maquina de escrever esperando sem cacife, o acaso é sua Ultima chance. a hora em que me desse na veneta batuca-la, eu proprio Caminha, tornado de uma fazendo meu macarrao e o café preto especie de diabolismo; mas este forte, que tomo corn pouco acacar. deriva todo do sentimento de Egocentrico, certamente, nao tenho o urgencia, nao da frieza. Como problema das pessoas incapazes de personagem de Fellini, tern impetos ficar s6 consigo mesmas—lastimode trepar numa arvore (ao menos as—incapazes de momentos de estaria trepando alguma coisa) e reflexao e autoconhecimento—a nao gritar para a cidade: "Jo voglio una ser no diva do psiquiatra. Ap6s 18 donna!" meses, era quase uma dadiva o direito It is a pretty scene. Too Se alguma vez conheceram a de nao conversar sem vontade. Sentiapretty. Violent, the desire violencia da fome voces entenderao me livre, livre. Um monstro. comes -back. I jump from bed, a pouca piedade corn que caminha Mas, agora, entrara na fase em que grasp her from behind. I kiss este troglodita. Ele se lamenta por estar s6 era castigo; nao desejava na her neck, suck the lobe of her ter deixado as coisas chegarem a vida mais que o privilegio de poder year, lick her face, the este ponto, recrimina sua esquibotar uma moca no cob o (saboreava a eyelids that she closes, I zoidia, sua falta de previsibilidade: palavra moca como a urn doce) e, suck one by one the fingers por que jogara fora o telefone da durante horas, alisar-lhe o cabelo, on her hand. And again I start morena do Som de Cristal, que beijar-lhe a boca. Se o mundo me do undress her. algumas vezes comera? concedesse isso, eu me dizia naquele As mulheres sentem o olhar moment°, eu the perdoava todo o RUBEM M AURO MACHADO feroz e se afastam assustadas: elas resto. nao querem ser devoradas. Mas é A cidade ronca, pessoas revoam, urn cacador tao timido, tao piedoso corn a energia tipica do lusco-fusco. na hora da execucao! Carros desbaratinados querem fugir 0 cacador se compara a urn por arterias entupidas, aceleram antes marinheiro e se justifica: voces de o sinal abrir. acham que um marinheiro, depois Rios e lagos de rostos desconhecide tres meses no mar, esta preodos, vagamente conhecidos alguns. cupado corn achar alguma mulher Aquele senhor alto, de pasta 007, foi especifica? 0 cacador e culto— famoso jogador de basquete, cheguei pelo menos bem-informado—e a ve-lo jogar, sempre o encontro por sorri ao lembrar urn verso de estas redondezas, envolto na aura de Quintana, que diz mais ou menos seu passado. assim: "Nao, eu nao estou saudoso Ha alegria na cara das pessoas que do teu calor humano; eu sinto falta pensam despedir-se da rotina, ainda é do teu calor animal." mais que se trata de um fim de semana Diante de uma banca, observo prolongado por urn feriado qual quer, corn desfastio as fotos das revistas urn 15 de Novembro ou uma Assuncao e as manchetes dos jornais que já de Nossa Senhora, algo assim, nao Ii: dor, ridiculo, miseria. Minha procurei saber, s6 sei que serao tres carencia é tao insignificante! E no ou quatro dias para born uso e gozo— entanto ocupa, neste momento, o é isso que me assusta—e, como centro da minha vida e dos meus sempre, as pessoas se iluminam corn pensamentos. Presuntos olham uma perspectiva de plenitude que suas corn 6rbitas vazias o ceu de urubus idas nao conhecem, na asfixia do da Baixada. Sou um derrotado. cotidiano. Esta noite hei de ir a urn baile 0 fim de tarde é para mim urn preciso criar as ou gafieira momento de disposicao fisica, de oportunidades possiveis para a vontade de caminhar, e eu enveredo manifestacaoldo acaso) mas, nao arrebanhando mulher, sei pela Sao Luis em direcao a Galeria Metrapole, sentindo-me como se processard meu mecanismo de compensacao: na inteiro, capacitado a participar de uma rUstica, o que nao volta, deplido, corn auxilio de sujas fantasias, me seria ma ideia para queimar um pouco da energia deste masturbarei eitado. Me lavarei no banheiro e depois, nao corp,o ainda jovem. estando podre de cansado, pronto para o esquecimento do E surpreendente, esta energia fisica convive corn o sono, porei Chopin ou Mozart e mais uma dose de uisque. abatimento moral: a coleguinha, depois de algum flerte, "Voce nao pode comer todas as mulheres do mundo. Mas voce pode tentar." (Ditado russo)
Party
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
, Entrando no estado de exaltacao alcoolica que é uma socorro, relembro rapidamente as licoes de machismo que das boas coisas davida (embora beba menos do que gostaria), me inculcaram desde a infancia e me pergunto: afinal, voce haverei de sonhar malucas viagens, farei pianos para o 6 homem ou nao e? futuro. No dia seguinte, acordar tarde. Almocar bem, num E fogo esta minha geracao, que chamo "do meio", que restaurante mais caro, depois ver um flume escolhido, um ficou prensada entre a repressao da anterior e o liberalismo filme de arte, que mexa comigo e me ponha num outro tipo da nova; a que trepa tendo aprendido que trepar 6 feio, coisa de exaltacao. Mas discuti-lo com quem, meu Deus! Nao nojenta, feita muito escondida. Que se dividia em escolas posso contar com os amigos, tem suas vidas, saem em para meninos e escolas para meninas. Que se iniciava, os casais—na nossa sociedade o solteiro 6 urn margioal—vao rapazes, nos bordeis. Que ensinava, as mocas, a serem a um dedicar os dias de folga aos filhos. E, aparentemente, sou o s6 tempo sedutoras e recatadas (na sala dos analistas elas anico em oito milhoes que ilAo se dispoe a deixar Sao Paulo. tentam hoje resolver a dualidade). Existe a tentacao de tambem pegar meu carro, sair sem Eu sabia que a pergunta teria efeito decisivo: ferido nos rumo; Inas estou quase sem dinheiro, pouco disposto ao brios, reajo e me digo que, afinal de contas, mulher nenhuma, congestionamento das estradas, o acotovelamento das praias por bonita que sej a, é superior ao homem. 0 que 6 que estao apinhadas. pensando, tenho o men charrne e um pau entre as pernas. Na esquina da Galeria Metropole me baixauma tristeza Por que nao nos ensinaram a naturalidade da relacao grande demais, ao pensamento de que sou um desajustado. entre os sexos? Corn a deeisao corn que Lee Marvin partiria, Desvio os olhos de urn casal que se abraca e beij a: o amor num filme polici31, em direcao a urn grupo de gangsters, me alheio é uma agressao ao carente. Avalio o que deve doer vou a ela. .I ser urn pe-de-chinelo. Minto. Achego-me sorrateiro, como quem nao Sim, acharas maneiras de te eompensar; mas em quer nada. Atavico instinto de luta (de caca?) tudo que facas, por melhor que seja, havera sempre desabrocha, rude for verrnelha. uma borra, urn residuo de desespero, no fundo do Eta folheia livros de arte, tern urn album de copo, no prat() do restaurante. Bosch nas maos. Isto facilita tudo, sou vidrado Decido se beberei uma caipirinha, vodka corn em Bosch. Comento qualquer coisa a respeito da suco de laranja ou o nosso pessimo uisque nacional maluca gravura que ela admira. Tenho consciencia e penso que sempre havera urn ultimo recurso: as que a voz, pela emocao, sal urn pouco mais rouca profissionais. Mas sera apenas somar urn outro que o habitual, Eta responde corn naturalidade e tipo de frustracao: a ansia é por sexo autentico, simpatia—ate o fim dos meus dias ser-te-ei grato, por carinho. E me paralisam nAo consideracoes Sandra, por isso. Relaxo: a ponte esti lancada. morais, a ideia da violencia contra a mulher—o Folheamos agora o album juntos, falamos de Bosch, medo de uma doenca venerea. A gonorreia, para mim, da (inconsciente?) simbologia sexual disseminada pela mais uma prova da nao existencia de Deus. sua fantasia pictorica; de Bruegel; a conversa acaba vindo Do outro lado da rua existe, numa galeria, livraria que parar .no surrealism°. Quer saber se desenho ou pinto, costumo freqiientar: resolvo dar urn pubo la, antes de beber. ' , digo-lhe que sou incapaz de tracar um circulo com urn o uisque vai me arrebentar mesmo, nada custu conceder compass°. Nao, ela nao faz arte, embora goste muito; quern uns minutos de tregua a meu pobre figado. sabe um dia faca. Cego e bondoso destino, guiaste meus passos: folheio Aceitou uma Coca-Cola. Em pe, lado a lado na ocioso revistas estrangeiras quando, no outro lade) da Sala, lanchonete, sinto o leve rocar do seu vestido, ouco o tilintar a vejo: linda e graciosa coisinha. ' de suas pulseiras: tenho impetos de beija-la. Amanha vai . 0 vestido solto, ate o joelho, acho que de seda, lhe cal com a familia para urn sitio no Interior, passarao o resto da muito bem. Sapato de salto alto (o dela é preto, de tiras!) 6, " semana la: ai de mim, aide mim. Deu de olhar no relogio; depois da roda, a maior invencao de todos os tempos: nao pode demorar, esti quase na hora de ir para a faculdade. corpo da mulher, projetado para a frente, para achar seu Geografia? NA° teria imaginado! Escuta aqui, Sandra, equilibrio empina-se, numa elegancia muito peculiar. E o falando seri°, p4 que voce nao mata a aula hoje e vamos pe! 0 pe e arco pronto a disparar. Os museulos da parte jantar juntos e e tinuar o nosso papa? Talvez voce possa inferior da ,perna ficam tensos, o tornozelo salienta- se: me ensinar qual 6 a capital do Pasquitao. maravilha. E esguia, morena, estatura media, cabelos soltos. RI (se urn homem faz uma mulher rir, tern meia parada Usa varias pulseiras, o que di urn charme desgracado. ganha). Nao tiro os olhos dela. Eta notou meu inferesse e, ao Nao pode; imagine so, vem al varios dias de folga e ela tirar livro da prateleira, curva-se mais que o necessario, de ainda vai matar aula? modo que o vestido adere ao corpo, mostrando comp tern a 0 que 6 que tem, Sandra? Voce ganha mais urn dia, quer bundinha bem feita—eu já tinha adivinhado, amor. coisa melhor? E garanto que nem metade dos professores e Trato de me aproximar, este simples movirnefito .de seus colegas aparece la hoje, no Brasil 6 assim, as desencadeia minha maldita timidez. 0 primeiro contato me pessoas esticam os feriados por conta propria. Nao, nao me 6 muito dificil, momento da major inibicao. 0 coracao . condene a jantar , s6 nesta arida noite paulistana; o que voce dispara, suo nas maps; a voz sal estranhamente estrangulada, ,h per de r em crencia geografica—conhecimento de resto sem cor. Odeio-me nestas horas, a impressao que devo recuperivel--- ganhara em enriquecimento pessoal, no causar. Pobre eacador! Admiro os machos que abordam contato corn fulgurante personalidade. corn tranqUilidade as mulheres, sorriso cativante, achando Ri. Hesita. Insist°, ate que diga, esta bem, voce 6 frase espirituosa para dizer. Neste terriveLmomento, eu se terrivel. E acrescenta, sacudindo a cabeca: é urn absurdo, tenho a consciencia de quanto sou gauche: meu idol° matar aula. Woody Allen. Desencadeia-se ern mum uma maquina de inspiracao Se o dialog° prospera, vencido o bloqueio inicial, quase automatica, diabolismo de campeao de xadrez que acalmo-me e dali a pouco sou ate capaz, modestia I parte, acumula lances quase sem pensar, ate o xeque-mate, sem de alguns brilharecos de impressionar. Na cama, sou o tal, compaixao pela desprevenida inocencia. muito tranquil°. Decidi que preciso seduzi-la, no menor tempo possivel. No caso, a situacao flea mais dificil na medida em que Domina-me um tipo de paixao e no seu nude°, duro caroco, eu a acho urn diabo de bonita. Mulher bonita di muito virulencia que muitos ditto nada ter a ver corn a palavra medo. Olho em redor, certifico-me: esta mesmo so. Raios, amor. Nao me rest tempo para urn namoro, uma conquista— o contra da coleguinha, depois de tanta bola, nao me reforca o que me possui urgencia de corner a moca. E novamente o ego. saboreio a palavr moca, fruta madura, sapoti, manga rosa. Acima do medo, da timidez, paira o desespero. Em meu Sou crianca Fsf eada ante a vitrine da confeitaria; o 32
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
cachorro e o osso. Mas esta virulencia vem embrulhada em ternura, uma ternura que me faz querer aperta-la em silencio contra mim, durante muito tempo. Entramos no carro, introduzo a chave no contato. A gorj eta para o guarda do estacionamento é gorda. Antes de dar partida, volto-me para ela, sorrio agradecido e contente. Afasto-lhe del icadamente uma pequena mecha do rosto e este primeiro contato fisico me eletriza, o pau cla uma empinada e quer furar a sunga apertada e a calca. Nao imagina como fico grato pela tua companhia. E na posse do meu diabolism°, acrescento, corn o ar mais casual do mundo: moro perto. Gostaria de tomar urn banho e trocar de roupa. Voce se importaria? Voce pode me esperar no carro. Demoro no maxim° vinte minutos. Nao, claro que ela ndo se importa. Voce é urn anjo, digo, aproveitando o pretexto para beijar-lhe a mao macia, engato a primeira, depois do banho you me sentir muito melhor. Estaciono na frente do predio e repito: ndo demoro. Abro a porta e, ao botar o pe na calcada, retrocedo, digo, como se me ocorresse na hora, corn a major simplicidade: escute, Sandra, por que voce ndo sobe urn pouco? Enquanto tomo o chuveiro, ponho um disco para voce. A sua espera sera menos chata; e eu fico muito mais tranquil° do que sabendo que voce esta aqui embaixo, sozinha. Nitida, a duvida cruza em seu olhar; mas minha sinceridade é acima de qualquer suspeita. Alem do mais, tenho uma incrivel cara de seri° e honest°, sou o tipo do rapaz bonzinho. Esta bem, ela diz, abrindo a porta. Ao trancar o carro, aproveito para ajeitar o pau dentro da calca. Vagaroso, o elevador do predio. A proximidade dela me excita. Falo, mas nao sei o que digo, quero é preencher este espaco (este silencio) que é o de uma zona morta, de urn intervalo, de uma tregua. Ela parece sentir o mesmo, responde alheadamente. Seguro a bolsa capanga com as maos cruzadas a frente, 70, 8°, 90, tudo para que ela nao perceba que estou de barraca armada; tesdo as vezes é uma puta mao-de-obra. Giro a chave urn tanto nervosamente, entramos, eu apresentando, este 6 o meu chateau, avalio minhas vitorias. Incrivel, senhores, o que já consegui: ha pouco mais de uma hora ndo a conhecia e já consegui traze-la a meu afiarthmento. Expresso urn desejo mudo mas ndo ouso pensar que podera dar certo, temo a decepcdo, o melhor pensar que ndo, ndo vai ser ainda desta vez. Devo beija-la durante o jantar: talvez depois do jantar... Sandra se interessa por meus livros. Mostro-lhe o que tenho, colocando-me a urn palmo, por tras dela. Aspiro sua adoravel proximidade, seu cheiro born de sande. Captara ela minha camuflada perturbacdo? Sandra acaba atraida por "Gente", album do fotografo portugues Gageiro. Diz que vai ve-lo, enquanto eu torno banho. A faxineira esteve de manila, o apartamento esta arrumadinho, isto aumenta de alguma maneira minha seguranca. Estou preso a minha classe—obri gado, Drummond. Sentada no sofa, cruza suas maravilhosas pernas. Engulo em seco, trato de escolher uns discos. Opto por Duke Ellington, sobre ele Oscar Peterson, temos musica para mais de meia hora. Ndo estou corn nenhuma pressa. Sem consulta, sirvo-the boa talagada do scotch que guardo para visitas especiais, sirvo-me de outro tanto. para agucar o apetite antes do jantar. Urn brinde: ao nosso encontro. Bebida, comeco de noite, musica apropriada: é clima de romance. Enquanto Sandra beberica do uisque, elogia a mnsica e folheia o album, eu, apenas uma toalha enrolada na cintura, inicio um transit° intenso pela sala entre o quarto e ° banheiro. Em cada passada, detenho-me, tomo urn gole de uisque, estico a conversa. Parece-me que minha serninudez BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
a afeta: em da o momento, julgo vislurnbrar brilho lascivo em seu olhar. Chamo-a ara ver a cozinha e a paisagem da janela, 150 andar. 0 apar amento tern apenas quatro pecas e uma area de servicd, m s sa° amplas e estdo arrumadas corn certo capricho. 0 t u apartamento 6 simpatico, diz Sandra. Vou deix r uma fresta da porta do banheiro aberta, aviso, para qu a gente possa continuar a conversa. Conto que isso sera fator de maior intimidade: ela a ouvir o barulho da ág a e imaginando-a escorrer pelo meu corpo. Entro no oxe, abro o chuveiro. 0 pensamento de Sandra na pec ao lado me causa uma forte erecao. Enquanto o jato de ãg a morna me escorre pelo corpo, ensaboo carinhosamen e o rijo membro, as coxas, a barriga, o peito, as axilas, ven o a espuma redemoinhar entre meus pes: banho assim um dos poucos prazeres desta porca vida. • Saio, me e xugo na toalha felpuda. A orquestra de Duke Ellington cal u-se, o piano de Oscar Peterson desliza gostoso. Entro na s la, a toalha umida enrolada na cintura, uma toalha de rost em tomb do pescoco. Vou ate a mesa, a pretexto de be ericar meu já aguado uisque. Copo na mao, coloco-me em ao lado da poltrona de Sandra, a um palmo de encostar n la, comento as fotos de Gageiro. Sandra mantem os ol os baixos, fingindo estar muito absorvida pelo album. E ita todo o tempo de me olhar. Estou con ciente da seducdo que emana de meu corpo, proximo, fres o, recem-lavado, cheirando a sabonete de prnho, seminu, me pergunto se ela percebe ou intui como esta duro meu pau por baixo da toalha. Sandra d teve-se na foto intitulada "Nazare", a impressionant figura de uma velha de negro que, contra urn ceu borras oso, ajuda pescadores a puxar a rede para a praia. A propri morte, comenta ela. Eu me arrepio cada vez que vejo, digo E saiba que esta foto ndo tern nenhum corte. E entdo ela e gue os olhos para mim. Nos fitamos um segundo, ante que eu me curve sobre ela e nossas bocas se procurem co desespero. 0 pobre Gageiro tomba de seu cob o e no ch o fica. Bebemos na boca do outro corn a sofreguidao d beduinos que encontrassem urn poco no Saara. Corn a ao direita, aperto-lhe os seios. Minha boc escorrega da sua, para correr ao longo do pescoco e reto ar esfaimada aqueles labios, dentes e lingua. Boto o lobulo de sua orelha—tdo fino que C transparente contra a luz dentro da boca, exploro corn a lingua suas reentrancias Ela ainda tenta esbocar uma rend°, diz chega, por avor—mas C tarde, nao tern mais forcas. Ficam s os dois em pe e, enquanto aperto sua bundinh , como sem querer deixo cair a toalha. u a sensacdo nova, extremamente excitante: eu, i teiramente nu, abracado a uma mulher, total ente vestida. Isto tambem a poe fora de si. Su mdo desliza pelo meu corpo, agarra e aperta me pau. bro os bottles de pressao da parte superior do vesti o, enfio a mao por dentro mas ndo consigo soltar o suti . Desabotoa na frente, ela geme. Diabos, ndo conhecii aque e modelo. Faco o vest do deslizar ao bongo do corpo, ele cai a seus pes como urn poca de musgo. Sabedor agora do truque, solto o sutid s m problemas: ela fica so de calcinha e nos sapatos de sal alto. Sou capaz e mamar o resto da vida nestes peitinhos maravilhosos. Sugo urn ate cansar (forca de expressdo), empinadinho, uro, mudo para o outro, enquanto ela geme, cabeca jogada para tras, ,dedos enterrados no meu cabelo molhado. Ajoelho-m devoto, baixo a calcinha, com jeito, vagar. Esfrego o rost nabarriga macia, na sua bunda tdo perfeita. pela m o para o quarto. Nunca fui tao feliz. E incrivel e tenha tudo dado tdo certo, eu tao cheio de temores, crent de que ela me acabaria escapulindo. Deposito-a sobre a cama como num altar. Acendo a 33
lampada de cabeceira e ela, num assomo de pudor, geme apaga a luz. No, nao, eu quero te examinar toda. Afasto suas coxas, corn cuidados de entomologo examino a boceta: parece-me a mais bonita que já vi. Este meu vagaroso exame a leva ao extase, e como se meu olhar de apropriacao seja capaz de penetra-la como nenhum falo, terno como a mais sutil das caricias. Penso que vai ter um orgasmo em seco. Beijo suas coxas, esfrego o rosto em sua maciez interna. Depois, corn a ponta da lingua, comeco a lamber o clitoris. Sandra se contorce, agarrada a cabeceira da cama, quando minha lingua entra na sua boceta ela nao agtienta e comeca a gozar. Eu a enxugo corn a ponta do lencol, recomeco a !amber o seu met. E tao doce que eu pergunto, o que é que voce poe na boceta, esta doce, e ela responde, nao ponho nada, é assim mesmo, meu amor. Viro-a de brucos. Minha lingua corre ao longo do ramal da espinha, lambendo suave penugem, do coccis ao pescoco. Afasto suas nadegas firmes, querendo conhecer todas as suas reentrancias: nao posso admitir que seu corpo me guarde algum segredo. Ponho-me a dar pequenas mordidas na sua bunda, ela reclama, ai bandido, esta doendo. Aguenta firme nao you te machucar. Quero come-1a no sentido literal. Ajoelhados sobre a cama, nos unimos num longo beijo, ela segurando meu pau, enquanto penetro-a corn o dedo, exploro o veludo quente corn que é forrada. Eu quero te chupar, ela diz. Fico em pe, ao lado da cama, o pe esquerdo sobre o colchao. Sandra, de joelhos no leito, me chupa o pau corn uma concentracao e compuncao quase religiosas—como se rezasse —enquanto lhe acaricio os cabelos, corn as duas maos. Uma onda de luz e calor vai subindo e por fim eu grito, chega, eu nao agtiento mais, e tenho de empurra-la de costas, porque eta quer continuar. Eta deita,.abre as pernas,. grita vem, vem querido. Eu a penetro num assomo de furia, quase em lagrimas, querida como é born entrar em voce! ai como voce é gostosa! e ela grita me come, me come toda meu macho, sou tua femea, faco tudo que voce mandar, tudinho, e é maravilhoso que palavras—simples palavras— tenham tanto poder, o poder das caricias mais sutis. Os finos tecidos do meu penis rocam a umida seda das paredes que o envolvem como pequena boca a sugar lingua alheia; quero segurar, prolongar o gozo, mas é impossivel e dou um grito e ela grita tambem e despencamos no abismo. Durante certo tempo boiamos sobre a cama, leves, leves, a cabeca dela descansando em meu peito. Estico-me, pego a toalha de sobre a madeira, ajoelho-me na cama: peco que abra as pernas e a enxugo corn carinho e cuidado; ela cerra os olhos. Voce é maravilhoso—e sussurra todas essas palavras que as mulheres bem-comidas ofertam, em reconhecimento, a seus homens. Me senti a vontade, solta corn voce. 0 ato do amor costuma ser carregado de tensao. Mas voce é calmo, tranquil°. E teu corpo é tao bonito! Gosto muito do teu braco, diz, corn esta paixao das mulheres pelos detalhes. Ele esta a teu servico—é claro, nao perderia a deixa para uma frase de efeito. Ambos rimos. Sandra me olha terna, diz palavras que me inflamam o ego, me deixam presumido, vaidoso, achando que sou o tat. Alerto-a para este perigo. Eta sorri: as vezes um pouquinho de vaidade nao faz mat a ninguem. Sou obrigado a concordar. Gabo corn sinceridade a maravilha que ela é. Meu Deus, é incrivel, é fantastic° que nossos corpos encerrem este 34
potencial de prazer, de dar prazer. Voce, de repente, iluminou minha vida corn uma alegria imensa, transformou toda uma perspectiva de sol idAo e desespero. Avalia este poder? Mesmo que voce nao esteja aqui nos feriados, a recordacao desta trepada maravilhosa me fard companhia. uma loucura, ha duas horas nem te conhecia e ja estou aqui deitada contigo—ela comeca a se preocupar corn a ideia de ter sido "muito facil", de ter se desvalorizado a meus olhos. Digo-lhe palavras de reafirmacao. Acabo por confessar-the o quanto fora insidioso ao atrai-la a meu apartamento, corn toda uma inocencia simulada e hipocrita, pretextando a necessidade de urn banho; a distraida deixa para que subisse urn pouco. Tudo arquitetado, embora numa inspiracao de momento, eu dominado, desde que a vira, pela necessidade urgente de possui-la, nao dentro de uma semana talvez, mas ja, agora. E ao lado da poltrona, ern pe, pretensamente olhando as fotos do album, estava consciente da perturbacao que meu corpo, fresco e seminu, lhe infligia. Em suma, minha querida, eu me comportei como um canalha corn voce; e sofrendo o tempo todo, incerto se conseguiria alcancar meus prop6sitos. E agora que os atingi, minha alegria é grande demais, como a de urn esfomeado que compra urn bilhete de loteria corn os ultimos niqueis e tira a sorte grande. Coisa de acontecer uma vez na vida. 0 pior: nao estou nem urn pouquinho arrependido de tanto cinismo. Ela ri, diz que agi muito bem; saira ganhando tanto quanto eu. Eu a pegara de jeito, tambem muito carente: talvez nao acreditasse, ha mais de seis meses nao dormia corn urn homem. Agradecida a tudo que lhe dei, nao so gaba meu maquiavelismo como pede que a deixe ser minha amante. Despertei chama que estava apagada ou mortica nela. Obedecera a todas as ordens que the der na cama, como chupar meu pau todo dia meia hora sem parar. Quando a examinei, daquela maneira meticulosa, quase gozou. Eu nao acho boceta uma coisa feia? Nunca,querida, jamais, é a mais linda paisagem que os olhos de urn homem podem contemplar. Beijo-a corn ternura, sinto o cheiro de sua pele. Nao entendo por que a juventude procura os baratos das drogas. Nao ha barato maior do que esse, de urn corpo rijo e quente a teu lado; odor melhor do que o que emana da pele; curticao maior do que curtir o outro—por que troca-la pela Quimica? Acho que sao coisas muito diferentes, diz Sandra, e esta resposta sintetica me desconcerta, faz-me sentir repressor. Minha embriaguez é esta. Costas apoiadas na cabeceira da cama, observo sentado Sandra terminar de se arrumar. POs o vestido verde musgo que I he cai tao bem, em frente ao espelho passa corn graca.a escova no cabelo, que adquire urn brilho azul-metalico. E uma cena bonita demais. Violento, o desejo me volta. Salto da cama, agarro-a por tras. Beijo-lhe o pescoco, chupo o lobulo das orelhas, lambo o rosto, as palpebras que eta fecha, chupo-the urn a um os dedos da mao. Comeco a despi-la outra vez. Voce é doido, doidinho de pedra. Sou, sou doido por voce. E nao reclame, voce disse que se submetia a todos os meus caprichos, que era minha escrava na cama. E eta sorrindo, olhos fechados: amor, nao estou reclamando. Ajoelhado no chao, depois de the baixar as calcinhas, abraco suas coxas, cob o o rosto no ventre macio e exclamo, como se aqui tome doesse: meu Deus, que tesao maravilhosa, quero que nao termine nunca. Espero que nao termine jamais! The Portuguese title of this short story is "Festa". It was originally published by magazine Status Literatura issue No. 76A. BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
The Wor
When she started saying four letter words with the girls from boarding school, this one was, by mutual agreement, ugly-beyondimagination, this was ' that ' that you d never dare say. Vulgarity has its limits and such a word would destroy it all. LEILAH ASSUNCAO "Xotinha é a das outras. Uma femea linda e tesuda como voce tern é uma bela de uma boce-ta." A palavra estalou no quarto. Como gema de ovo. Gelada. Ribombou nas paredes. Como tambor. E parou. Parou suspensa. Solidificada. Leda no sabia se afundava pela terra adentro, se ia embora, ou se fingia simplesmente rid° ter escutado a palavra horrivel. Nao, impossivel nao ter escutado. La estava ela, a palavra, paralisada no ar, nao so escutada como soletrada, arregalada, descarada, bo-ceta. Horrivel. De todas, a Onica que ela jamais conseguiria pronunciar. Medonha. Quando a via escrita nos muros, la no Interior, mesmo corn bu em vez de bo, se avermelhava toda e virava o rosto. Quando comecara a dizer alguns nomes feios, corn as meninas do internato, esse era, de comum acordo, feio-alem-da-conta, esse era "aquele" que nao se ousard nunca dizer. Quando, já moca feita e desinibida, nos amores corn o noivo pedia-lhe entre suspiros que "a possuisse logo", sabia muito bem que os "desvarios" tinham limites claros, que a vulgaridade estava obviamente fora dos limites, e que "essa" palavra entao, "essa" palavra destruiria tudo. E agora au i estava, na cama corn um estranho, o noivado malrompido, na cama corn urn estranho que lhe admirava a bo-ce-ta. Ai, nao, que horror, nao conseguia sequer "pensa-la" inteira. E a palavra au i na sua frente, boiando e planando, paradona, encarada, encarada, ah meu Deus, que lhe dera na cabeca? Como pode chegar a isso? A menos de tres horas atras estava corn o noivo no restaurante, anel no dedo, moveis comprados, casamento marcado, futuro planej ado, definido, garantido. Uma briga de nada, comecou corn qualquer coisa sobre a roupa colorida dela e ela acabou se mandando do restaurante sozinha. Quando ia entrando no seu predio viu o moco. Deu bola. Ele seguiu, entrou, agarrou e pronto. Ela deixou. Louca. Nao, nao dava pra nao ter deixado, nao dava. 0 noivado rompido, o clima de aventura, a excitacao, o inusitado, o desconhecido. Ela deixou e ate ousou bastante, pedindo a urn estranho: "Poe, poe na minha xotinha, poe." Pra escutar aquilo. Que xotinha era a das outras. Que a dela, bem, pra escutar aquilo, aquela resposta-palavra despudorada solta no ar encarando ela, como se sentia ridicula. "Poe, poe na minha xotinha." Uma debil mental miando baixo, uma menina boba esganicando fino, uma cavalona corn a xotinha impubere. Ficou se imaginando imensa e corn a xota de bebe, urn tracinho fino e pelado no meio das pernas compridissimas, das ancas parideiras, do ventre aveludado, dos seios de macieira. Foi al entao que Leda BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
percebeu que a palavra nao estava mais no quarto. Foi so entao que ela viu que o som, como que por enca to havia desaparecido da fre rite dela. Al ela sentiu. Sentru numa contracao quente e funda, quase doida, que a palavra havia caido e se agarrado nos c infins das suas entranhas. Se agarrado feito torniquete contorcendo o Otero, inha virado brasa, bo-ce-ta. Cheia e polpuda, ele continuava, crespa, carnu • a, e ele foi la entao, carnuda e saborosa, gostosa, gostosa, e se enfiou, b -ce-ta, a sua bo-ce-ta, boceta de mulher feita de mulher femea desabrochada exuberante, é came, é suco, é for, e fruta, é figo, e figo, e boceta, boceta, corn a lingua id dentro ele beijou e lambeu e chupou e se lambuzou, chupa, ela se escutou falando entao chupa, lambe, morde, assim, molha, cospe e erja e saliva molhado, endurece a lingua e enfia firme, assim, deixa ela du a como o teu . . . ca-ra-lho. Essa ela já nem se escutou falando mais. Já e tava entregue. Ela já nao escutava, nem pensava, nem sabia. E nem senti . Ela "era" todas as emocOes e sentimentos, ela era todas as palavras mais sublimes e as mais chas, ela era todas as poesias e todos os caloes ma s baixos, amor, amor, ela fal ava, mesmo sabendo que esse tesao nao er amor ela falava amor, nao te conheco e te amo, vem amor, me fode corn e se teu pau gostoso, nao, voce nao tern pau, voce tern ca-ra-lho, pau é o dos i utros, voce tern ca-ce-te, de homem macho plantado firme, de base solida e levantando rijo, me da, me deixa apalpar, assim, me da, é meu, me deixa p ssar os labios e te sentir corn a lingua, duro, firme, decidido, deixa que a mi ha boca te engula inteiro, e te sugue e sugue e chupe e nos lambuzemos junt s, vem, investe firme neste meu campo teu, escoiceia e enfia fundo, me e tala corn o teu tab o forte e me estala, me arrebenta, tome posse desse p co, caramba, que foi que eu disse, nao sei mais se apenas penso ou digo e faco, eu enlouqueco, e Leda entao tambem beijou e lambeu e chupou e se la buzou, queria morrer agora e nos cristalizar assim n ste prazer tao doido e eternizar este meu gozo novo, este meu gozo fink°, este meu gozo, ah, caceta, nao sei se penso ou falo, fazemos, vem meu tesao lou o, desvairado assim, assim, vem, bem fundo, enfia e queima la no fundo, é de la que eu... vem amor, ah, me trepa e mete, eu enlouqueco, junto comigo agora vem meu amor, agora, o gozo nosso, eu you.,.. ah, a or, meu amor... meu am... Gritaram juntos. As cont acoes e o gozo foram completamente inverbalizaveis A impressao era que depois do gozo eles dois planar m e depois pousaram relaxando calmos, como se fossem santos. Fecharam os olhos e assim ficaram muito tempo, deitados de maos dadas, agora sem falar e nem pensar nada. Entao ele acariciou os cabelos dela e isse seu nome, Luiz, mas ela pedru srlencro. Enta ela mentiu que era casada e que o marido ia che ar. Ele se levantou, mudo, vestru-se. Rabiscou o tele one num papel, jogou sobre a cadeira e foi-se embor . Ela se espreguicou, andou um pouco pelo quarto, massou o papel que estava na cadeira e jogou no lix , displicentemente. 0 telefone tocou, era o noivo dela, ela disse que ele tinha um pirulito e ela uma beta de u a boceta, e desligou. Vestiu-se cantarolando, alegre, pela primeira vez na vida sentia-se liberta, segura e olta, dona de si e do mundO. Pegou a bolsa, abriu a po a, chamou o elevador. Saiu pra rua. Nunca tinha visto ntes uma noite linda como aquela, oar tao fino e pun, o ceu tao estrelado, nunca se sentira antes tao assim, sem medos, tao assim dona de si, do mundo, e de todos os homens do mundo. Um cara passou e falou que ao sabia que boneca andava, ela pensou que cretino continuou andando. 0 segundo cara disse que ela er a nora que a mae dele sonhava, ela pensou que imbecile continuou andando. Dois, tres, cinco quarteirOes e fi almente o quarto cara que mexeu corn ela fez um barulho molhado corn boca e disse—"O tesuda, posso dar uma chupada nessa sua boceta gorda " Ela parou e olhou pra ele. Ficou olhando, e escutando. Ficou esperando. as nada. Ela esperando e nada. Nada. Nao havia meio, a palavra continuav la, suspensa e horrorosa. Nao havia meio da palavra cair e se contrair no fim do fundo das suas entranhas e do seu Otero. Ficava la, suspensa e para ona em cima da cabeca dele, sem tesao nem excitacao nenhuma, apenas c apada, feia, arregalada e arreganhada. Pornograficada. Ela entao volt u pra casa, foi ate o lixo, desamassou o papel, foi ate o telefone e disco "Luiz? Olha, eu nao sou cas da nao e..." E foram felizes pra sempre. The Portuguese title of this short story is "A Palavra". It was originally published by magazine Status Literatura issue No. 76A. 35
iz ouND THE W
A11°UND THE
111,
11111"111L 111119 11111111DMINI MOMS Jr
4/".• . • / At .41/MIP YON //11/111.'"INN.. •EILANNIO ORM ANII WM" 111111111-WIN..
TRAVEL
TRAVEL
4105: . • 412IE .atif *WA
'4101101&111.7 m 11/MIIP ".... ..41101.. ...
ROUND THE " as' . •48MI . Obi NMI MID smisawiff wawa J1' .0.2.110110...11111MMIMIARILIP" ar
TRAVEL
OUND THE woRt '
SOUND THE WORL
.
4/AW. "Rh NONIIhrOIL ' mit NOR MOO IL OS NINISAAN/
•4111EI " rim annbe-ea.. OMEN WM% AIRIENVO.
wawa aunurstinc.
.411701001111110./aMIKOSIP •••....1114•LOW/4••••
"1.000.-WION MIPAPJ%
TRAVEL
TRAVEL
ARC , IATAN
\tot\TIAcLY Po l l 0 ZA6
a partir de
ida e volta
(Sujeito a restngoes ou mudangas sem aviso previo)
SAO PAULO -ro LOS ANGELES
$817 Ida e volta
(Sujeito a restngoes ou mudancas sem aviso previo)
SF To BELO HORIZONTE a partir de $71 5
ida e volta (Sujeito a restrigOes ou mudangas sem aviso previo)
LAX TO BELO HORIZONTE OR SALVADOR a partir de $
MONICA
FOP TAO FACIL VIAJAR
mail: aroundtw@inetworld.net
LOS ANGELES TO SAO PAULO
a partir de
so,-# 2003457-40
800) 471-633
NUM FOI TAO FACIL VIAJAR
$ 550
lFr
64.0 Ida e volta
(Sujeito a restrigoes ou mudangas sem aviso previo)
RIO TO LOS ANGELES
EXISTEM MUITAS AGENCIAS DE VIAGEM PARA VOCE ESCOLHER, E A ESCOLHA FINAL E SEMPRE SUL POREM NOS DE A CHANCE DE MOSTRAR•LHE QUE, COM 0 JEITINHO BRASILEIRO, VOCE VAI PODER VIAJAR SEMPRE POR MENOS!
EXCLUSIVO! GRATIS - LIGAcii0 DE QUALQUER CIDADE BRASILEIRA
000-817-471-6333 NAo TWOS A P,RETENSA0 DE,SER A AGENCIA NUMERO 1. POREM ESTAMOS CERTOS QUE APOS VOCES VIAJAREM COM 0 JEITINHO BRASILEIRO SEREMOS SEMPRE A SUAAGENCIA NUMERO 1. ASSENTOS LIMITADQS. SUJEITO A RESTRIcOES
(Sujeito a restrigaes ou mudancas sem aviso pram)
NYC TO RIO OR SAO PAULO a partir de
$520 ida e volta
(Sujeito a restrigties ou mudangas sem aviso pram)
MIAMI
TO
RIO OR SAO PAULO
a partir de $525
ida e volta (Sujeito a restrigOes ou mudangas sem aviso previo)
LOS ANGELES To RIO a partir de $560
ida e volta (Sujeito a restrigOes ou mudancas sem aviso previo)
SF TO SAO PAULO
NiJ THE WORI a partir de $
881 Ida e volta
(Sujeito a restncoes ou mudangas sem aviso pram) 36
/AL ..1/1Ny sianaequa__ "MN MU MONO OD 'IONIA./ 'WWI AMR Jr "IlelizimmuworsrAramor
TRAVEL
a partir de
$585
ida e volta (Sujeito a restngOes ou mudangas sem aviso previo) BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
i! What now?
You will do well if you speak Spanish in Brazil. Brazilians will understand what you say, but you won't get much of what they .say. So do.n t thin* studyinnl f Portiiguese is a waste of time. Brazilians .are very Oas to befriend, but unfortgnately the vast majority of the speak little or no English. We present here a little Portuguese glossary Quem tern boca vai a Roma. (If you can speak you can get to Rome.) When they settled Brazil in the 16th century, the Portuguese encountered the di erse languages of the Indians. These, together with the various idioms and dialects spoken b the Africans brought in as slaves, extensively changed the Portuguese spoken by the any settlers. Along with Portuguese, Tupi-Guarani (language), written down and simplified b)the Jesuits, became a common language which was understood by the majority of the popula'on. i It was spoken by the general public until the middle of the 18th century, but its u age diminished with the great number of Portuguese gold-rush immigrants and a royal pr clamation in 1757 prohibiting its use. With the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1759, Portugues- was well and truly established as the national language. Still, many words remain from the Indian and African languages. From Tupi-GOrani come l ts of place names (e.g. Guanabara, Carioca, Tijuca and Niteroi), animal names o e.g. piranha, capivara and urubu) and plant names (e.g. mandioca, abacazi, caju andjacaratidci ). Words from the African dialects, mainly those from Nigeria and Angola, are used in AfroBrazilian religious ceremonies (e.g. Orixa, Exu and Iansa), cooking (e.g. vatap0, acaraje and abarei) and in general conversation (e.g. samba, mocambo and moleque). Within Brazil, accents, dialects and slang (giria)vary regionally. The Carioca insert the "sh" sound in place of "s'. The Gaucho speak a Spanish-sounding Portuguese, the Baiano (from Bahia) speak slowly and the accents of' the Cearense (from Ceara) are often incomprehensible to outsiders. Portuguese is similar to Spanish on paper, but sounds completely different. You will do quite well if you speak Spanish in Brazil. Brazilians will understand what you say, but you won't get much of what they say. So don't think studying Portuguese is a waste oft me. Listen to language tapes and develop an ear for Portuguese—it's a beautiful-sounding language. Brazilians are very easy to befriend, but unfortunately the vast majority of them speak little or no English. This is changing, however, as practically all Brazilians in school are learning English. All the same, don't count on finding an English speaker, especially out of the cities. The more Portuguese you speak, the more you will get out of your trip. Most phrasebooks are not very helpful. Their vocabulary is often dated and they contain the Portuguese spoken in Portugal, not Brazil. Notable exceptions are Lonely Planet's Brazilian Phrasebook, and a Berl itz phrasebook for travel in Brazil. Make sure any EnglishPortuguese dictionary is a Brazilian Portuguese one. If you're more intent on learning the language, try the US Foreign Service Institute (FSI) tape series. It comes in two volumes. Volume 1, which includes 23 cassettes and accompanying text, costs $130 and covers pronunciation, verb tenses and essential nouns and adjectives. Volume 2 includes 22 tapes with text and sells for $115. It includes some useful phrases and a travel vocabulary. For fluent Spanish speakers, FSI also has Portuguese-From Spanish to Portuguese, which consists of two tapes and a text explaining similarities and differences between tl ese languages. This one costs $20. To get hold of these, write to or call the National Audiovi ual Center (301) 763-1896, Information Services PF, 8700 Edgeworth Drive, Capitol Heights, Maryland, USA, 20743-3701. In Australia, most foreign-language and travel bookstores stock a range of material, f om the basic "Travel Pack" with a phrase book and two tapes for A$35, to a condensed ver ion of the FSI tapes. A condensed version of the FSI tapes is available from Learn Australia Pty Ltd (008) 338-183, 726 High St, East Kew, Victoria, 3102. Twelve 90-minute tapes cost A$195. The 'Living Language' course is in-between, and it includes phrases, vocabulary, grammar and conversation. The manual and CD cost A$50. Combine these with a few Brazilian samba tapes and some Jorge Amado novels and you're ready to begin the next level of Instruction on the streets of Brazil. If that doesn't suffice, it's easy to arrange tutorial instruction through any of the Brazilian American institutes where Brazilians go to learn English, or at the IBEU (Institut° Brasil Estados Unidos) in Rio. Portuguese has masculine and feminine forms of nouns and adjectives. Alternative gender endings to words appear separated by a slash, the masculine form first. Generally, "o" indicates masculine and "a" indicates feminine. BRAZZIL -OCTOBER 1997
Greetings & Civilities Hello Goodbye Good morning Good afternoon Good evening Please Thank you (very much) Yes No Maybe Excuse me. I am sorry.
Oi Tchau Born dia Boa tarde Boa noite Por favor (Muito) obrigado (m) (Muito) obrigada (f) Sim NAo Talvez Corn licenca Desculpe (me perdoe) (lit: forgive me) How are you? Como vai voce/Tudo bem? I'm fine thanks. Vou bem, obrig ado/a Tudo bem, obrigado/a Language Difficulties
Please write it down. Please show me (on the map). I (don't) understand. I (don't) speak Portuguese. Do you speak English? Does anyone speak English? How do you say... in Portuguese? I have a visa/ permit.
Escreva por favor. Por favor, me mostre (no mapa). Eu (nAo) entendo. Eu (nao) falo portugues. Voce fala ingles? Alguem fala ingles? Como voce diz... em portugues? Eu tenho urn visto/ uma licenca. Paperwork
Passport Passaporte Surname Sobrenotne Given name Nome Date of birth Data de nascimento Place of birth Local de nascimento Nationality Nacionalidade Male/Female Masculino/Feminino Small Talk What is your name? Qual e seu nome? My name is... Meu nome e... I'm a tourist/ Eu sou urn turista/ student. estudante. Where/What country De onde/De que pals are you from? voce é? I am from... Eu sou... How old are you? Quantos anos voce tem ? I am... years old. Eu tenho... anos. Are you married? Voce é casado/a? Do you like...? Voce gosta de...? I (don't) like... Eu (nAo) gosto de... I like it very much. Eu gosto muito. May I? Posso? It's all right/No Estatudo bem/Nao ha problem. problema. Tourism office I'd like to change Eu gostaria de trocar some... Urn pouco de... Money Dinheiro Travelers' checks Cheques de viagem Bridge Ponte Cathedral Catedral Church Igreja Lake Lago Main square Praca principal Palace Palacio Ruins Ruinas 37
Getting Around I want to go to... I want to book a seat for... What time does the ... leave/arrive? Where does the... leave from? bus tram train boat ferry The train is... delayed cancelled on time early How long does the trip take? Do I need to change? You must change trains/platform One-way (ticket) Return (ticket) Station Ticket Ticket office Timetable I would like to hire a... bicycle motorcycle car guide horse
Eu quero ir para... Eu quero reservar urn assento para... A que horas... sail chega? De onde o/a... sai? onibus bonde trem Barco Ferry (sometimes called balsa) 0 trem atrasado cancelado na hora adiantado Quanto tempo a viagem demora? Eu preciso trocar? Voce precisa trocar de trem/plataforma Passagem de ida Passagem de volta Estacao Passagem Bilheteria Hordrio Eu gostaria de alugar Um/uma... bicicleta moto carro guia cavalo
Directions How do I get to...? Where is...? Is it near/far? What...is this/ Street/road House number Suburb Town Go straight ahead Turn left Turn right At the traffic lights At the next corner Up/down Behind/opposite Here/there • East West North South
Como eu chego a...? Aonde 6...? E perto/longe? 0 que d... isto? Rua/estrada Miner° da casa Bairro Cidade Va em frente Vire a esquerda Vire a direita No farol Na proxima esquina Acima/abaixo Atras/em frente Aqui/ld Leste Oeste Norte Sul
Arou nd Town Where is the/a...? Bank Exchange office City center Embassy Hospital Market Post office Public toilet Restaurant Telephone center
Aonde é o/a...? Banco Casa de cambio Centro da cidade Embaixada Hospital Mercado/feira Correio Banheiro publico Restaurante Telefonica
Accommodation I'm looking for the... Youth hostel Camping ground Hotel Guesthouse Manager Owner What is the address? Do you have a... Available? Bed Cheap room Single room Double room Room with two beds For one/two nights How much is it per night/per person? Is service/breakfast included? Can I see the room? It is very... Dirty Noisy Expensive Where is the toilet? I am/We are leaving now Do you have...? A clean sheet Hot water A key A shower
Body Language
Eu estou procurando o/a... Albergue da juventude Camping Hotel Ousada Gerente Dono Qual é o endereco? Voce tern um/uma... Para alugar? Cama Quarto barato Quarto de solteiro Quarto de casado Quarto coin duas camas Para uma/duas noites Quanto é por noite/por pessoa? 0 servico/cafe de manta esta incluido? Posso ver o quarto? E muito... Sujo Barulhento Caro Aonde é o banheiro? Eu estou/N6s estamos saindo agora Voce tern...? Um leneol limpo Agua quente Uma chave Urn chuveiro
Food Breakfast Lunch Dinner Set menu Food stall Grocery store Delicatessen Restaurant I am hungry /thirsty I would like the set lunch please Is service included in the bill? I am a vegetarian I would like some Another... please I don't eat...
Brazilians accompany their speech with a rich body language, a sort of parallel dialogue. The thumbs up of tudo bem is used as a greeting, or to signify 'OK' or 'Thank you.' The authoritative mio, nab finger-wagging is most intimidating when done right under someone's nose, but it's not a threat. The sign of the figa, a thumb inserted between the first and second fingers of a clenched fist, is a symbol of good luck that has been derived from an African sexual charm. It's more commonly used as jewelry than in body language. To indicate rapid() (speed and haste), thumb and middle finger touch loosely while rapidly shaking the wrist. If you don't want something (nil° quero), slap the back of your hands as if ridding yourself of the entire affair. Touching a finger to the lateral corner of the eye means 'I'm wise to you., VISAS & EMBASSIES At the time of writing, Brazilian visas were necessary for visitors who were citizens of countries which required visas for visitors from Brazil. American, Canadian, French, Australian and New Zealand citizens
Café da manila Almoco Jantar Refeicfto Barraca de comida Slang Mercearia B r a zi li a n s pepper their language with Confeitaria I strange oaths and odd expressions. LitRestaurante Eu estou corn ome eral translations are in brackets: /sede Oi! Hello! Eu gostaria do Tudo bem? Everything OK? prato feito por favor Tudo born Everything's OK 0 servico esta Chocante! That's great/cool! incluido na conta? Merda! That's bad/Shit! Eu sou vegetariarto/a logicorta Great/Cool/OK Eu gostaria de 6timortd legal! algum/a Meu deus! My God! Outro/a... por favor louco! It's crazy/You'rel Eu tido como... crazy Nossa! (Our Lady!) Gosh Beer Cerveja Opa! Whoops! Bread Pao Oba! Wow! Chicken Frango Falou! You said it! Coffee Café Eu estou chateado corn I'm mad at... Eggs Ovos Tern jeito? Is there a way? Fish Peixe Sempre tern There's always a Food Comida •jeito way Fruit Frutas Palavrao! (curse word) Meat Came Batendo um shooting the Milk Leite papo breeze Mineral water Agua mineral Fumo (smoke) marijuana Pepper Pimenta cara guy Salt Sal garota girl Soup Sopa grana money Sugar Acucar bum-bum/bunda bum Tea Chd careca bald Vegetables Verduras bagunca a mess Wine Vinho abacaxi a fix/troublesome problem Fio dental (dental the famous floss) Brazilian bikini
I.
38
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
Shopping
Times & Dates How much does it cost? Quanto custa? What time' is it? Que horas sao I would like to buy it Eu gostaria de comprar It's... sao It's too expensive for me E muito caro para mim 1:15 Uma e quinze Can I look at it Posso ver? 1:30 Uma e meia 1:45 Uma e quarenta cc I'm just looking So estou olhando O'clock Horas I'm looking for... Estou procurando In the morning Da manha A chemist Uma farmacia In the evening Da noite Clothing Roupas When. Quando? Souvenirs Lembrancas Yesterday Ontem Do you take travelers' Voce aceita cheques de Today Hoje checks/ viagem/cartdes de Tonight Hoje de noite credit cards? credito? Tomorrow Amanha Do you have another Voce tem outra con/ Day after tomorrow Depois de amanh color/size? tamanho? Morning De manha Big/bigger Grande/maior Afternoon Dc tarde Small/smaller Pequeno/menor Night De noite More/less Mais/menos All day Todo o dia Cheap/cheaper Barato/mais barato Every day Todos os dias Numbers , Sunday Domingo 0 zero 17 dezessete Monday Segunda-feira 1 um/um 18 dezoito Tuesday Terca-feira 2 dois/duas 19 dezenove Wednesday Quarta-feira 3 tres 20 vinte Thursday Quinta-feira 4 quatro 30 trinta Friday Sexta-feira 5 cinco 40 quarenta Saturday Sabado 6 seis (meia) 50 cinqtienta 7 sete 60 sessenta January Janeiro February Fevereiro 8 oito 70 setenta March Marco 9 nove 80 oitenta April Abril 10 dez 90 noventa May Maio 11 onze 100 cem June Junho 12 doze 1000 mil July Julho 13 treze one urn August Agosto 14 catorze million milhao September Setembro 15 quinze first primeiro October Outubro 16 dezesseis last nItimo November Novembro December Dezembro
required visas, but UK citizens did not. Tourist visas are issued by Brazilian diplomatic offices and are valid for arrival in Brazil within 90 days of issue and then for a 90-day stay in Brazil. They are renewable in Brazil for an additional 90 days. It should only take about three hours to issue a visa, but you need a passport valid for at least six months, a single passport photograph (either B/W or color) and either a round-trip ticket or a statement from a travel agent, addressed to the Brazilian diplomatic office, stating that you have the required ticketing. If you only have a oneway ticket they may accept a document front a bank or similar organization proving that you have sufficient funds to stay and buy a return ticket, but it's probably easier to get a letter from Excerpts from Brazil a travel A Travel Survival Kit agent stating that you 3rd edition, have a by Andrew Draffen, round-trip Chris McAsey, ticket. Leonardo Pinheiro, Visitors and Robyn Jones. under, 18 years of age For more information must submit call Lonely Planet: a notarized (800) 275-8555. letter of auCopyright 1992 Lonely thorization Planet Publications. from their Used by permission. parents or a legal guardian.
TRAVEL DISCONTO DE 2046 EM PASSAGENS DENTRO DOS ELIA
PRECOS ESPECIAIS PARA CONTAS DE COMPANI-IIAS
TO RIO OR SAO PAULO R0UN TRIP PLUS AIR PASS FOR UP T 4 BRAZILIAN CITIES. FROM LOS ANGELES $ 799.00 FROM S.LAKE CITY $ 799.00 FROM NEW YORK $ 733.00 FROM CHICAGO $ 799.00 FROM KANSAS CITY $ 799.00 FROM ATLANTA $ 799.00
1(800) 321-6336 www.traveland.com FROM LA CALL (213) 482-2323
ILESTRICHONS APPLY; PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE vartiour PRIOR NOTICE.
BRA77IL - OCTOBER 1997
UP TO 20% DISCOUNT ON DOMESTIC TICKETS
SPECIAL PRICES FOR CORPORATE ACCOUNTS 39
Electric Trio Bakari is the Brazilian party thrower par excellence. Visual artist and music promoter Bakari has become a treasure trove of the Brazilian community in Los Angeles, California and the USA. It's rare a Brazilian-inspired celebration in Southern California that doesn't have his creative energy behind. His latest venture is Brazilian Night at Mamagaya. With Kleber Jorge and Meia Noite (Midnight), he is giving Brazilian ball a new meaning. BRUCE GILMAN If you're a Brazilian musician in Los Angeles and have a gig on a night when there is a party at Bakari's studio, forget about it. Everyone will be at Bakari's. And when there isn't a party at Bakari's, chances are good that the action around town was his inspiration. Like a character from one of Jorge Amado's novels, visual artist and music promoter Bakari Santos is known and loved by the entire (Brazilian, AfricanAmerican and arts) community. In his unruffled, but tenacious manner, Bakari has continuously provided Los Angeles with hordes of opportunities to come together, listen to the finest in Brazilian music, and let the good times roll. Aside from bringing Olodum to town for two performances and tattooing the curvaceous bodies of both Sharon Stone and Erykah Badu with the reddish-orange dye ofthe henna plant, Bakari has been busy promoting BraMeta Nolte, Kleber Jorge, and Bakari zilian Night at Mamagaya in West Hollywood. The show features the Kleber Jorge conference call concerning Olodum's arrival and accomBand and supersedes everything Bakari has accomplished modations. Finally, after a never-ending day of rehearsals to date. Every Thursday night the place is packed with that concluded with a choro group, which the Brazilian Brazilians, West Los Angeles upwardly mobile types, and, Consulate put together for its National Day celebration, of course, musicians who want a first-hand glimpse of what Kleber arrived. We took turns speaking about individual all the talk is about. By the end of the first set, Mamagaya projects and about Brazilian Night at Mamagaya. is shoulder to shoulder "dancing" room only. Kleber's band combines his writing talent, velvet voice, Brazzil—You have promoted Brazilian music in Los and tasteful guitar technique with the ferocious drive of one Angeles for 15 years. How did you get started? of Bahia's foremost percussionists, Meia Noite. FurtherBakari—I used to be married to a singer, and I started more, the band integrates the two opposing, yet compliby promoting her when we arrived in Los Angeles from mentary forces of the Sergio Mendes band and explains Brazil. Years later, we were divorced, but I kept on promotwhy Mamagaya is packed with musicians hungry to learn ing Brazilian music. I never stopped. I felt it was necessary the inside secrets of this marvelous combination. Bakari, because no one else was doing it. And today there is still a Meia, and Kleber are a powerful entity. big information gap. There should be more Brazilian clubs I met with this triple alliance last month at Bakari's in this city! studio, and I am indebted to Bakari for hosting the evening that brought us all together. I spoke first with Bakari while Brazzil—Have L.A. club owners been reluctant to open he and I waited for Meia and Kleber to arrive. Meia and I up space in their schedules for Brazilian music ? chatted while Bakari became embroiled in a three-way 40
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
Bakari—Well, usually there are problems because all they want is money, and they want a lot of money. They are coming from a different point of view. They are struggling to stay alive too, so naturally they want to sell a lot of alcohol. They want people to consume. But things happen naturally. You cannot force people to drink. Sometimes they come for the music. Sometimes they don't drink. On a Thursday night you can't expect people to drink more than two or three beers. They have to drive and go to work in the morning. Basically it's a problem with money, which is not a big deal. Things can usually be worked out. Brazzil—You're not getting rich by promoting all these artists. Why do you do all this work? Bakari—When you help, you help. It's a passion. Plus it keeps me from getting bored. I believe that everything is going to be all right because I'm doing a good job, just for the sake of doing good works. I trust. Besides, I go around a lot to hear bands, so finding locations that are suitable for them is a natural progression. I live well and have a comfortable life. I'm not rich, but I'm very happy with the things that I do, and I feel rich spiritually because of my many friends and the many things I'm able to do in life. Brazzil—Last year you were involved in promoting a more global project that involved sending medical personnel and educators to the Amazon. Can you tell me a little about that work? Bakari—That was a great project that was brought to my attention by the percussionist who worked on the sound track for the film Emerald Forest. It was an incredible concept. Really touched my heart. At the time I was doing a lot of environmental work and felt that I had to do something to help these people and make others aware of what is going on in these remote regions inside the Amazon. Unfortunately, the concept was aborted and I've lost touch with the people involved. I hope that some time in the future we will be able to reconnect. Brazzil—Bakari, you work with oil, metal, and natural pigment. But regardless of the medium, your work always has recurring motives of nature and the patterns and colors of Bahia. Bakari—Biology and the concept ofthe Global Village are my passions in life. My connection with Bahia comes from the time I studied in Salvador, Bahia. I was there for four years. I had been studying biology at the university in Rio, but went to Salvador for a student conference, and I fell in love. The following year I transferred to a school in Salvador. I started selling paintings to pay the rent while I was attending school. Brazzil—Recently you've become involved with henna dyes. Henna tattooing seems like a gentle approach to the tattoo frenzy that has taken off on the West Coast. Bakari—You know, the more we get into cyberspace, the more tribal we become. The more technological we become, the more we look for our roots. The more we remove ourselves from nature, the more we are compelled to grasp our spirituality. I've been watching this happen gradually. It's incredible. It's pretty much part of an enormous process. Henna tattooing is something that has been going on in Africa and in India for generations. The dye is made from the leaves of the henna plant. It's a temporary tattoo that fades in a couple of weeks, and it's a lot fun. By becoming knowledgeable about this process, I feel like I am helping to rescue and record part of a culture that's vanishing. BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
Brazzil—Y ur art work has garnished the CD jackets for Brazilian ja z fusion groups and artists like Zil, Terra Sul, and Ricardo Silveira. Who's next? Bakari—I' working now on a design for Kleber. Brazzil—I know many people tune in Sergio Mielniczenko' radio shows just to hear the calendar segment where y u announce upcoming events that are of interest to the razilian community in Los Angeles. You and Sergio hay been friends for many years. How did you first meet? Bakari—A ter I graduated from school in Brazil, I knew I wanted be a painter and metal sculptor, but when I arrived in L s Angeles in the summer of '78, it was impossible. I c uldn't make a living. I didn't know how to move around t is town without a car. In December of that year, I started w rking at the Brazilian consulate. It was the only payroll jo I've ever had, and it's also where I met Sergio. Bra zzil— uch has happened in your private life and your art work s nce 1978. What about the future? Ba ka ri—I m learning and having a lot of fun with every hing that I'm doing. My art keeps developing. I create jewelry, I paint, I have a line of T-shirts, I tattoo. I'm always researching new techniques. The more I do, the more I learn. But I'd still love to work more with the environment. This is one thing that we all have to get involved with. Each one of us needs to make a change, for our kids and in order to survive as a species. My way of building for the future is by bringing people together. Brazzil—Recently, you've been prooting Brazilian Night at Mamagaya. Is is a glimpse of the future for Brazilian usic in Los Angeles? Bakari—Yes. And that's good. I've been ge ing a lot of calls from club owners who no want Brazilian music in their clubs. This is q ality music that Kleber and Meia are presenting. he owners see the success of Mamagaya and want the sa e, which is good because it promotes the music and gene ates more work for the Brazilian bands in town. Still, Bra ilian music hasn't hit its stride. I believe that around the ear 2000, Brazilian music is going to be as common as ha burgers. Samba neve made it in the United States. Bossa nova came out briefl in the 60s, then Jamaican reggae and salsa, but nothing as strong from Brazil. We have incredible rhythms, especi Ily in the Northeast. Baiiio,xaxado, sambareggae, axe mu ic...all the rhythms that we have, they're still coming. T ese are rhythms that people love to dance to. Little by littl ,by the millennium, we are going to be in great shape. Al o, more and more Brazilian musicians are moving to the nited States, and that helps spread the music. Brazzil—Wth Kleber and Meia working together it seems like we'r finally starting to hit the right combination. People are .eginning to hear what they've been missing. Bakari—Ex ctly. We formed a good alliance, which was instrument I and set the tone for other artists like Lula, Ana Gazzola, a d Sonia (Santos) to come together for a lot of shows instea of each one going his separate way. It's easier to work t gether. We are multiplying the power of Brazilian music and it's working well for all of us. More venues are beco ing available, and the shows are stronger, 41
remained in the States.
more intense. Brazzil—Has Meia considered bringing his band, Midnight Drums, to Mamagaya? Baka ri—Oh yes. He wants that venue. He's working there a lot with Kleber's band, but he wants to show his own work. He's very concerned with quality and with sound. He won't play just anywhere, only in the places that he feels good about. Meia is an artist that is difficult to please. He stopped working at Luna Park because he was unhappy with the sound. He likes Mamagaya, but we have to talk about money with the owner. (The phone rings. Long distance for Bakari)
RIC
Brazzil— Meia, you are one of the most imitated and sought after percussionists on the scene Did you come from a musical family? Meia—My father, Baixinho, was a great cuica player. I started playing on the street in Bahia at ten years old. Whenever wealthy people parked their cars, my friends and I were there, ready and waiting with some buckets and water to wash their cars and watch them so nobody messed with them. We did this just to make some small change. But Carlinhos (Brown) and I started to play rhythms on the cars and buckets to earn extra money. Brazzil—I've heard that Carlinhos plays buckets in his shows. Meia—People in Bahia don't have water in their homes, so they have to have buckets. Everyone learns to play on buckets. It's a cultural thing. In Carlinhos Brown's shows today he plays a big solo on two buckets ( Meia mimics the sound) and then he turns around and takes a wet T-shirt out of one of the buckets. It's very cool. Brazzil—Did you ever play with a particular
bloco afro? Meia—No. I never went to the blocos afro because they won't pay. But I played the trios eletricos. Brazzil—Are you a capoeirista? Meia—I used to perform capoeira in the Ondina neighborhood in Bahia at a restaurant called Alto de Ondina. It's called that because it's on the top of a hill. Now I just do capoeira for fun, if a friend calls me into the circle at a show or a party. To think of myself as a capoeirista, I would have to train all the time and keep concentrating on it, like anything else. Brazzil—You came to the United States seven years ago with Oba-Oba. Since that time you've taught many classes on Bahian rhythms, given numerous workshops, and tutored several professional musicians privately. Did you teach when you arrived? Meia—No! Never! In Oba-Oba nobody taught. If you were caught teaching, they would take your money and kick you out. They had the strictest discipline. You'd do the show and go back to the hotel. If you were my best friend. I couldn't talk to you. I'd have to call you some other time. Brazzil—Was the money good? Meia—For two weeks work we would make two hundred dollars. Earning that kind of money in Brazil was one thing, but in the United States? At that time performers in the United States who worked the schedule we did were making thousands of dollars. The contrast wasn't missed, which is why many of the best players left Oba-Oba and 42
Brazzil—The liner notes in Tony Mola's disc Bragadth give special thanks to Meia Noite. Why? Meia—What did he say? It says my name there? I'm going to have a talk with him when I get to Bahia (laughs). We played together when I lived there. He's my good friend. When he came to the United States with Oba-Oba I told him, "Tony stay here in New York." He did, and he didn't go back to Brazil for over six years. But he eventually left because he said that he wasn't making any money, that there was no work. Now he's released the album, and he's making a lot of money and doing shows. But we( Meia and his wife, Jordana) had a falling out with Tony. VIORY LH I I•14
RDO SIUIEIJILt
Brazzil—Tell me. Meia—Jordana and I were in Salvador during Carnaval, and Tony called and wanted me to play and go hear other people play, maybe sit in with different musicians. But he said that no one was bringing their wives. It sounds selfish, but you have to understand that Salvador is packed at that time of year. People everywhere, thousands of bodies crowding every tiny street. IfJordana came with me and we were separated, I wouldn't have seen her for days. If she stayed by herself, it would have been the same. She got really mad, so we left. Brazzil—What's that story I keep hearing about smoke pouring out of your hotel room window when you were on tour in Japan with Sergio Mendes in 1994? Meia—(Laughs) I had a little electric plugin stove and had brought three cases of beans, rice, canned meat, sugar, and coffee. I learned this when I was with Oba-Oba. Food was so expensive wherever we performed that we cooked in our hotel rooms. We were very poor. Well, in Japan food is expensive, and we were going to be there for 6 weeks. Things were really hectic and.. .you know, that kind of thing happens. Brazzil—In 1995 you toured China. Meia—Yes. That was the Jacky Cheung World Tour. Jacky is China's Michael Jackson. I opened the show every night with a solo in front of 12,000 people. Brazzil— Meia, there is so much power in your playing, so much spirit, so much syncopation in your soloing. It is a signature of your work. What influences your music? What do you like to listen to? Meia—Timbalada, Olodum, Vai Quem Vem, every group in Bahia has a very specific rhythm; it's their identity. I listen to all of the music from Bahia, but I like salsa too. Any kind of music with an African influence appeals to me. If the music doesn't have that root, it puts me to sleep. Brazzil—What are you working on now in Los Angeles? Meia—Besides my work with Sergio and Kleber's band, I'm performing with my band, Midnight Drums, and putting together my demo. We've recorded some interesting arrangements like the Door's tune "Light My Fire" with a levada rhythm. It's like a fast samba-reggae. I've used different musicians on each track, but all the arrangements are being done by Bill Brendle, the keyboard player in Sergio's (Mendes) band. ( Bakari opens the front door for Kleber) BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
Kleber—Sorry I'm late. I had three rehearsals today. The chorinho group wrapped up after nine o'clock.
Everything jus all of a sudden opened up in my mind. I crossed a thres old with Moacir. He refined me.
Brazzil—Jump right in! Klelber—It's a very interesting project celebrating Pixinguinha's 100th anniversary. We're playing tmisica regional. The music is intense, very difficult, but I like it. Sounds nice. I have to practice this music everyday, a lot, because there are so many notes. Wow! It never stops. You have to get used to it. You have to play it over and over so that your fingers get used to it and won't forget, until it becomes a reflex. It's a challenge for me because I've never played choro on the cavaquinho, and now I'm dealing with all those notes. Oh my God!
Brazzil—L t's talk a little about the other guys in the Kleber Jorge and. I know Ze Bruno from lots of gigs around town. e's everywhere. Love his playing. Meia's brother, Gibi ( • omic book), and Jerry Watts from Don's band. How did ou hook up with Jerry? Kleber—I rst heard him playing with Dori (Caymmi). He's been Dori s bass player for a long time. He also plays with Kevyn Let au. We became friends, and he said that he was available d that he would like to get together and play, so I invit d him the first chance I got. Great bass player.
Brazzil—Choros are compositions in perpetual motion, like Bach on the cavaquinho. Kleber—Yeah, I've always liked chorinhos because my father used to play that music. He played regional on viola() (guitar) and contrabaixo (double-bass). He used to sing, play bass, play guitar, a little bit of each, and I grew up listening to that music. But I never really played it. Today I was thinking a lot about my father playing that stuff when I was a kid.
Brazzil—T e band has an interesting repertoire at Mamagaya that varies between original material, classic samba tunes lik "Voce' Abusou"—injected with a sambareggae groove, and the latest Brazilian dance tracks like Daade's "Vett ava" and Carlinhos Brown's "0 Bode." Kleber—W 've got a great scene, you know. Mamagaya is a place wher people go to have fun. They want to go dancing. So we re playing what people want to hear in a place where pe • ple want to dance. We do a lot of stuff from Bahia like the ong that Carlinhos Brown covered on his CD called "Qui abeira." We do a lot of samba-reggae. We are also doing t e title song from Martinho da Vila's new CD Ta Delicia, Ta Gostoso. That's a great title. I like Martinho a lot. grew up in the Vila Isabel neighborhood.
Brazzil—Tell me more about your musical background. When did you start playing? Kleber—When I was in my teens in Brazil, I started playing electric guitar. First, it was the Beatles and all that stuff. I was 14 and American music was everywhere. I listened to a lot of that Brazzil—Do you write American music. It was on all the arrangements or work Bakari's (cover art) discography: the radio all the time. But I them out with the band? passed through that electric Kleber—First of all, I Storyteller Ricardo Silveira Kokopelli Rec, 1995 phase when I was 18 and have to say that I respect Kindness of started getting into a more Strangers people who write great Terra Sul M ojazz/Mottiwn 1993 acoustic sound. You know, Zi/ tunes, and I like playing Zil Verve/Forecast 1990 viola° and that stuff. I their songs. But yes, usustarted listening to a lot of Meia's discography: ally I mix some of my own Milton (Nascimento) and ideas into the original ar(Gilberto) Gil. Djavan came Amber Maria Bethania EMI rangement, and at rehears1996 later. I heard a lot ofDjavan. Oceano Sergio Mendes Verve/Forecast 1996 als we are always experiI love Djavan. Yeah, defiBahia, menting and adding things. nitely. Cidade Aberta Saul Barbosa JHO/WEA 1995 Through the years I kept Storyteller Ricardo Silveira Kokopelli 1995 Brazzil—Mamagaya is playing acoustic guitar, and Brasileiro St,'rgio Mendes Elektra 1992 a promising gig in a great Amizade when I moved here, I started Yasuko Aga‘Na Invitation 1992 room. Everyone is there. Berekeke' studying jazz guitar with Geraldo Azevedo Geracdo 1991 Luizinho, Cabral.. .As I was Ted Greene. I wanted to leaving, I saw Flavio and Kleber's discography: improve my playing. I his wife. They looked like wanted to solo. I went over they were up for good time. Ocean° Sergio Mendes Verve/Forecast 1996 to Ted's house, and he asked Dressed up, you know? In Tempo Sadao Watanabe Sony 1996 me to play something for Kleber—True, very Mistura Fina John Patitucci GRP 1995 him. His first words were, true. I know, all the Universal "You sound great! Why did presidents.. .(laughs) from Language Kevyn Lettau JVC 1995 you come here? What do the escolas de samba, all Another Season Kevyn Lettau JVC 1994 you want to learn?" I told the directors. I like that too. Simple Life Kevyn Lettau JVC 1993 him that I wanted to imIt's a classy place. People in Brasileiro Sergio Mendes Elektra 1992 prove, to learn more chords. L.A. are looking for that. We started little by little( The owner started from because at the time my English wasn't good enough to nothing and built it. It's nice t o finally have a first class understand all the terminology. After six months, I had room for Brazil an music, a room that draws both crowds. improved a lot, and it felt good. I stayed with Ted for over And, of course, he band is tight. Great energy. three years. I have all his books, all the chords. I also studied Brazzil—I' delighted that you sing in Portuguese, composition, harmony, and arranging with the Mestre even with this ixed crowd. When people sing Brazilian Moacir Santos. And this man completely changed my music with Eng ish lyrics, it seems like someone is trying approach to music and the way I hear things. He was a to fit a square peg in a, round hole. Portuguese is such a tremendous influence on me. I can tell that I have develmusical language:, oped as a musician since my work with Moacir. I knew Kleber—Definitely. It fits the Brazilian swing. When many things before, but they never made perfect sense to you put English lyrics to a Brazilian tune, it's not the same. me until I started going to his house and talking about them. That's one of re sons it's been taking so long to finish my BRAZZIL -OCTOBER 1997
43
CD. The producer had it in mind to have a lot of English lyrics, so I did that. Six months later I listened to the results and said, "I really don't like this." I erased the English lyrics and recorded the vocal tracks over in Portuguese. Out of thirteen tracks, I only have two songs in English, all the rest are sung in Portuguese. Brazzil—Tell me more about the new CD? Kleber—I've already recorded all the basic tracks, and now I'm mixing. Most of the tunes are original compositions, but I covered one Jobim tune and a tune from the group Boca Livre. Dori Caymmi produced three songs, wrote two arrangements, and sings a duet with me. I used a lot of different people. Luis Conte is involved. Just° Almario plays sax and flute. Michael Shapiro produced most of the project and plays drums. Scott Mayo, the great sax player who also plays with Dori, is playing on it, nice guy. Brazzil—When will it be on the street? Kleber—I signed an international deal with Sonic Images, so the disc will be distributed first in Europe and Asia. Brazzil—How do you like working with Sergio Mendes? Kleber—It's good. He is a really nice man, very cool. He can't stop saying, "Kleber, it's great to have you here. I'm happy. You bring something different to this band." And I'm always saying, "Man, likewise. It's the owner." Sergio is gold. For me it's such an honor to work with him. I've learned so much since I joined his band. You know? He's an unbelievable band leader. First of all, he knows what he wants. And second, he has so much experience with the sound and with presenting a show. It's quite a combination that he has. It's something that all great musicians have. And he has it. His shows always sound great because he never gets lost putting them together, the set list, everything. He knows...He just knows. Brazzil—Did you perform any tunes from Oceano at the show in Anaheim? Kleber—Yeah, we did the songs "Trilhos Urbanos." It's one of Caetano's songs. We did "Rio de Janeiro." And I sang "Holografico Olodum," which is sung by Gilberto Gil on the Oceano CD. Brazzil—There is a lot of similarity in your voices. Have you heard Gil's Quanta? Kleber—Yes. It's magnificent, really special. It's some of his best material. Bakari played it for me, and the second I heard all that sound in the studio, it hooked me. I couldn't believe it. His vocals, the quality of his vocals, are great, the best I've ever heard from Gil. It's amazing! And the mixing, wow! Brazzil—You'd figure at some point Gil would relax his standards or run short of new ideas. The only complaint I have is that the liner notes credit Alceu Maia for playing the ukulele, not the cavaquinho, on Cartola's tune "Ciencia e Arte" (Science and Art). Kleber—They say that? I can't believe it! Who wrote that? Brazzil—The cavaquinho must have got lost in the translation. Have you listened much to Guinga? Kleber—Oh man, he's incredible. Great composer, great guitar playing. I know some of his tunes, not everything. Most of what I've heard I like. He's not happening in the States right now. His name is not that big here. It is in Rio. But he's supposed to be big here in a few years. He's good friends with Sergio. Sergio has spoken about him many times, saying, "You've got to meet Guinga. You've got to know him. He's such a great guy. Such a regular 44
person." He's a dentist. Did you know that? He has an office and everything. He goes to work every morning. Gracinha, Sergio's wife, told me that he goes to work at six in the morning. Guinga's wife is a dentist too. So they both go to the consultorio, the doctors office, very early. That way he's able to get home by noon, so he can do his music, his writing. By one o'clock he's with his guitar writing something. I said, "Wow, that's unbelievable!" Yeah, he wakes up early, and every day. I can't believe it. Brazzil— Kleber, has living in the United States significantly changed your music? Kleber—I always hear this question. I don't know. Of course, my music has the jazz touches, that's for sure, more jazz than pop or rock. And I'm always getting ideas from arrangements that I hear on recordings by people like Quincy Jones and groups like Earth, Wind, and Fire. But the swing is still Brazilian. I've never heard anyone say, "Oh, your music is too Americanized." I don't think it is, because every time Brazilians hear my music, they connect with it right away. Brazzil—I do, and judging from the Thursday night crowd, lots of other people do to. Thanks, guys. Bakari, thanks for bringing this evening together. Bakari—A pleasure. Come on. Let's have a beer and something to eat.
Bruce Gilman, music editor for Brazzil, received his Masters degree in music from California Institute of the Arts. He leads the Brazilian jazz ensemble Axe and plays cufca for escola de samba MILA. You can reach him through his E-mail: cuica@interworld.net
ATEKAO TODOS OS ARTISTAS! VOCE PODE EXPRESSAR ARTE? (Pintura, Escultura, Fotografia, Entalhes & Etc.)
.APENAS PAM MEMBROS DA NOSSA COMUNIDADE DE LINGUA PORTUGUESA.
Arte é o tema do proximo volume da publicacao Nosso Guia/Our Guide. a Se vencedora, a sua arte sera nossa capa, cartao telefOnico, abertura do "web site" na Internet e muito mais!
NovuGmE4.1-)„, tad •
97-98 adquira ja o seu! Vencedor do "Trofeu Mats Mats 1996" e convidado para a "Nolte Dos Autografos" 1997.
r- Para maiores informacOes em como participar ou
-4\ patrocinar este evento artistic° intemacional, favor enviar nome, endereco, niimero do telefone/fax e e-mail (se tiver) para: Nosso Guia/Our Guide I 1 1 N.E. 1st Street, 9th Floor, Miami, FL U.S.A. 33132 Tel: (305) 374-0096 - Fax: (800) 300-1178 E-mail: nossoguia@ourguide.com Web Site: http://www.ourguide.com MV1TOS
rRtmios
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
ril
TioA itgg Histo The 'siege' of Maria Sara, the siege of Lisbon, and the tied destinies of Mogueime and Ouroana all resonate and echo off of one another. Saramago's larger concerns, however, seem to be about the possibility of rewriting history and the relationship between fact and fiction. The History of the Siege of Lisbon, by Jose Saramago, trans. by Giovanni Pontiero (Harcourt Brace, 314 pp., $24) BONDO VVYSZPOLSKI
3.)
Excerpt (from p. 232) Raimundo ran his hand over his forehead for a second, then said. I used to dye my hair but no longer, white roots are not a pretty sight, forgive me, in time my hair will get back to its natural color. Mine has stopped being natural, because of you I went to the hairdresser today to have these venerable white hairs tinted. They were so few I wouldn't have thought it worth the bother, So you did notice, I looked at you closely enough, just as you must have looked at me and asked yourself how a man of my age could be without white hairs, No such questions entered my mind, it was obvious that you dyed your hair, who did you think you were deceiving, Probably only myself. Just as I've decided to start deceiving myself, It comes to the same thing. What do you mean by the same thing, Your reason for dyeing your hair, mine for no longer dyeing it, Explain yourself, I stopped dyeing my hair in order to be as I am, And what about me, why have I tinted my hair, To go on being as you are, Smart thinking, I can see that I'll have to practice mental gymnastics daily in order to keep up with you. I'm no more intelligent than you are, simply older. Maria Sara smiled quietly, Irremovable evidence that clearly worries you, Not really, our age only matters in relation to that of others. I suspect I'm young in the eyes of someone who is seventy, but I'm in no doubt that a youth of twenty would consider me an old man. And in relation to me, how do you see yourself, Now that you've tinted the few white hairs that you possess and I'm allowing all of mine to show, I've become a man of seventy in the presence of a girl of twenty, You can't count, there is only a difference of fifteen years between us, Then I must be thirty-five. They both laughed...
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
...he holds his biro with a steady hand Wand adds a word to the page, a word the historian never wrote, that for the sake of historical truth he could never have brought himself to write, the word Not, and what the book now says is that the crus ers will Not help the Portuguese to conquer Lisbon..." oofreader Raimundo Silva is a bachelor in his fi ies who, with the stroke of a pen, undermine a book (with the same title as the latest novel by Jose Saramago, of course) to make it seem as if the first Portuguese king, Afonso I (Aforiso, not Alfonso; this isn't Spain), didn't require the outside assistance of the Crusaders in expelling the Moors from Lisbon in 1147. Its an audacious act (of rebellion? or impish delight?), and Silva's colleagues are flabbergasteçl. It also raises the eyebrows, and piques the inter st, of Silva's new supervisor, Dr. Maria Sara, ifteen years his junior. She urges the mischiev us proofreader to tell his own history of Lisbo , basing it around the naughty not he'd earlie inserted. Saramago's distinctive style—sentences and passages like a rolling landscape without end— allows past and present, fiction and history, to wash back and forth across the page. Because Lisbon is such an old city, the events, or even physiCal remnants, of the era which the story recounts persist to this day. As Silva reworks and develops his story, he can see or visit the actual sites yvhere crucial turning points of the 12th centutly occurred. As Silva's revisionist history takes shape, so does his relationship with Maria Sara. Saramago's book needs 200 pages before Silva even gets around to calling his boss at home, but once planted, their passion is quick to bloom. Equally quick 6 unfold, at this point, is Silva's rehandling of history, which is marked by a budding romance (to balance out his own) between Mogueime, a Portuguese hero/warrior, and Ouroana, concubine of the knight Heinrich. Pr sumably the 'siege' of Maria Sara, the siege f Lisbon, and the entwined destinies of Mogu ime and Ouroana all resonate and echo off of one another, but Saramago's larger concerns seem t be about the `rewriteability' of history and thus the curious relationship between made and made-up. Towards this end, a working knowledge of Portuguese medieval history as well as a familiarity with Lisbon itself would certainly help. Finer points, one feels, are lost—and ironies missed—if one has but the faintest understanding of this small but special country. Th History of the Siege of Lisbon is the fifth ofSara ago's novels to find its way into English, and th ir late translator Giovanni Pontiero will be sorely nissed. But Siege is also the most challenging—and trying—of the author's works, its subject matter making it seem more academic (and therefore less 'fun') than such earlier gems as Baltasar and Blimunda (just reissued as a Harvest paperback) and The Year of the Death of Ricar4 Reis. While the new book rewards the truly patient reader, and may in fact extend Saram go's reputation I do not think it will extend is readership. For all that, Jose Saramago is a modern master, there's no doubt of that, and one of the most consistently compelling authors of our time. 45
Movies Rio Graal: Retrato de um Fausto Quando Jovem (Graal: Portrait of Faust as a Young Man)—Written by avantgardist poet Haroldo de Campos and directed by controversial Gerald Thomas. A mix of discursive and poetic language. Faust is a poet dealing with Mephistopheles. With Bete Coelho. Salve Amizade (Hello, Buddy)—A good-humored portrait of the fortysomething generation. Two women decide to rekindle their adolescent passions just to find out how time has been cruel to their former leading men. Written and directed by Flavio Marinho. With Louise Cardoso, Cristina Pereira, Marcelo Saback, Paulo Cesar Grande and Alice Borges.
Um Bonde Chamado Desejo (A Streetcar Named Desire)—The 1947 Tennessee Williams's play about fading Southern belle Blanche DuBois, her rape and end at a mental institution. Directed by Kiko Jaez, with Roberto Bomtempo and Flavia Pucci.
Sao Paulo
Anchieta, Nossa Histdria (Anchieta, Our History)—A celebration of the so-called Apostle of Brazil, Jesuit priest Jose de Anchieta, on the 400th anniversary of his death. By Alzira Andrade and Alceste Madella. Directed by Denise del Vecchio. With Daniela de Vecchi and Klever Dey Ravanelli.
o
Principio do Avesso—Dom Casmurro (The Opposite Principle—Mr.
Peevish)—Based on Machado de Assis's (1839-1908) classic novel Dom Casmurro (1900). In a new twist, it starts with Bentinho suspecting his wife's (Capitu) fidelity and ends up with their first kiss. Written by Marici Salomao. Directed by Antonio do Valle. With Vicentini Gomes. Prova de Fogo (Trial by Fire)—The story of the 1968 invasion of University of Sao Paulo's Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciencias e Letras by the police, during the military dictatorship. By Consuelo de Castro, directed by Abiljo Tavares, with Alexandre Lima, Alvaro Franco and Marine Pereira. Tudo Blue no Mercosul (All's Blue on Mercosup—In a vaudeville-style oftheater, the play has some two dozen sketches peppered with music, dance and humor. Written by Sebastido Apolonio and Marcia Polachini. Directed by Sebastiao Apolonio. With Maria Alcina and Alfred Estrella. Directed by Sebastido Apolonio. 46
Books
best-sellers
American films just released: Night Falls on
Manhattan (Sombras da Lei), Contact (Contato), My Best Friend's Wedding (0 Casamento de Meu Melhor Amigo), Shadow Conspiracy "(Conspiracclo), Father's Day (I Dia 2 Pais), Anna Karenina (Anna Karenina), Air Force One (Forca Agrea Urn), Gridlock 'd (Gridlock 'd, na Contra Mao), When We Were Kings (Ouando Eramos Reis), Down By Law (Daunbailo) rereleased, Stranger than Paraside (Estranhos no Paraiso) re-released. Baile Perfumado (Fragrant Ball) — Brazil — 1996 — Directed by first time directors Paulo Caldas, 33, from Paraiba state and Lirio Ferreira, 32, from Pernambuco. The story of Lebanese Benjamin Abrahao, the only person who in the '30s was able to film bandit Lampiao and his band. With Claudio Mamberti (Benjamin), Luis Carlos Vasconcelos (Lampiao), and Jofre Soares (Padre Cicero). Ed Mort — Brazil — 1996 — Private eye Ed •Mort (his name plays with the word morte, death in Portuguese) is hired by a suspicious wife to a master of disguise — locate her husband when he disappears. Based on the comical characters created by writer Luis Fernando Verissimo. Direct by Alain Fresnot. With Paulo Betti, Claudia Abreu, Irene Ravache and Otavio Augusto. Je T'aime Moi Non Plus (Paixdo Selvagem) — France — 1976 -- Directed by Serge Gainsbourg with Jane Birkin and Joe Dalessandro. Homosexual truckdriver falls in love with a young waitress. A Ostra e o Vento (The Oyster and the Wind) Film was shown at recent —Brazil— 1996 Venice Film Festival. The fantasies of a girl who lives with her father in an island after she hears about a sailor's adventures. Directed by Walter Lima Jr. with Leandra Leal and Fernando Torres. 0 Que E Isso, Companheiro? (What's That, 1996 —The story of the young Pal?)—Brazil guerrillas from the ALN (Acao Libertadora Nacional) and MR-8 (Movimento Revolucionario) who on September 4, 1969 kidnapped Charles Elbrick, the American ambassador in Brazil exchanging him for 15 political prisoners. Loosely based on Fernando Gabeira's book of same name. Directed by Bruno Barret°. With Alan Arkin, Pedro Cardoso, Fernanda Torres, Selton Mello, and Fernanda Montenegro. 0 Velho: A Historia de Luiz Carlos Prestes (The Old Man: The Luiz Carlos Prestes's Story) — Documentary based on a 1985 Brazil— 1995 interview given by the founder of PCB (Partido Comunista Brasileiro Brazilian Communist Party), Luiz Carlos Prestes (1898-1990). By Toni Venturi, narrated by actor Paulo Jose.
Fiction 1. 0 SOcio—John Grisham 2. Meu Anjo Fausto Oliveira
3. 0 Livro das Virtudes para Criancas—William J. Bennett 4. Asterix—A Galera de Obelix Goscinny & Uderzo
5. kone Frederick Forsyth
6. Sanduiches de Realidade Arnaldo Jabor
7. Do meio do Mundo Prostituto... and Hist6rias de Amor Rubem Fonseca
8. Didrio de um Magro Mario Prata
9. 3001: A Odisseia Final Arthur C. Clarke
10. Conversando Contigo Zibia Gasparetto
Nonfiction 1. Cazuza—SO as Mdes São Felizes Lucinha Arai(jo
2. 203 Maneiras de Enlouquecer um Homem na Cama Olivia St. Claire
3. As Receitas Preferidas de Ana Maria Braga Ana Maria Braga
4. Inteligencia Emocional Daniel Goldman
5. 0 Principio Dilbert Scott Adams
6. A Danca do Univers° Marcelo Gleiser
7. Minutos de Sabedoria Simples C. Torres Pastorino
8. 0 Sucesso E Ser Feliz Roberto Shiniashiki
9. Inteligencia Emocional: A Arte de Educar Seus Filhos John Gottman
10. As Sete Leis Espirituais do Sucesso Deepak Chopra According to daily newspaper
Jornal da Tarde BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
EAR CANDY 1 000
BITTER PILL Brazilian TV host Ferreira Neto, who has a TV interview show in Florida, did not take too seriously the warning by the customs police at the Miami International Airport when he was caught in May bringing a box of Rohypnol into the U.S. Rohypnol is a medicine sold as a tranquilizer in Brazil, but it is considered an illegal drug in the United States. At the time, Ferreira Neto signed a document committing himself to not bring the confiscated substance to this country again and was let go, On August 17, the bearded TV presenter was once again caught red handed. This time there was no compassion. The medicine was apprehended and Ferreira Neto was taken to jail, being freed only after posting a $10,000 bond. Now the journalist is being prosecuted for drug traffic. If condemned, he might get as much as three years in prison. What did Ferreira Neto think about his ordeal? "Human rights in the United States are a big joke," he said.
GOING ON UP Carlos Wattimo, owner of Brazil Update, a New York-based company that sells videotapes with Brazilian TV programs, is betting that he will also be successful producing a TV program himself. So sure is Wattimo, in fact, that he is shelling out $200,000 from his own pocket to produce the pilot of the sitcom Astoria, USA. The Portuguese-language situation comedy to be shown on Brazilian TV will revolve around a Brazilian family that left Brazil after being involved in a financial scandal. In New York, they open the Plaza boarding house that becomes a hanging out place for Brazilian sacoleiros (people who buy goods to resell in Brazil), musicians, and go-go girls. Astoria, USA, is being directed by Jordele Larcher. Most of the participants in the project are Brazilian actors and actresses who live in the United States. Co-writer Claudia Rapsold says that she was inspired by her compatriots who live in the same Astoria neighborhood that she does. BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
GSP Recordings, a label recognizec. for its integrity, has just released the complete Afro-Sambas of Vinicius de Moraes and Baden Powell. Interpreted by Paulo Bellinati and Monica Salmaso, the recording adds a new dimension t the concept of guitar and voice duets and was a finalist for the 1997 Premio Sharp award, Brazil's equivalent of a Grammy. Monica Salmaso's voice is alluring, dreamlike, and powerful. Bellinati's guitar counterpoint is a refreshingly different approach to the accompaniment role. Hearing is believing. Afro-Sambas is without a doubt one of the best releases of 1997. For more information call (800)288-2007.
Vinicius de Moraes
TAKING MANHATTAN Drawn by what they consider great bargains, well-to-do Brazilians have been taking—or better—buying New York. The trend has been noticed - by weekly newsmagazine Veja. Real estate agency Corcoran's, for example, has sold 50 apartments in Manhattan to Brazilians in the first six months of this year. Among the celebrities who now own a piece of the Apple we have singer Gal Costa who paid a cool $1 million for her vacation refuge. Another Bahiano musician, Caetano Veloso, got his place for half the price in East Village. Singer Marisa Monte and composer Joao Bosco have also bought their little corner on the island of Manhattan.
Learn Anothe Language on Your Own! Learn to speak a foreign language fluently on your own and atyour own pace with what are considered the finest in-depth courses available. Many were developed by the Foreign Service Institute of the U.S. Department of State for diplomatic personnel who must learn a language quickly and thoroughly. Emphasis is on learning to speak and to understand the spoken language. Atypical course (equivalent to a college semester) includes an album of 10 to 12 audio cassettes (10 to 18 hours), recorded by native-bom speakers, plus a 250-page textbook. Some of our Courses: $160 0 Serbo-Croatian $195 $185 0 Latin 0 Arabic, Saudi $185 0 German I $185 $185 0 Slovak $155 0 Latvian 0 Egyptian $185 0 German II $185 $185 0 Lithuanian $135 0 Spanish I $24$ 0 Greek 0 Bulgarian $165 $185 0 Spanish II $185 0 Haitian Creole $225 0 Mandarin 0 Cantonese $185 $255 0 Norwegian $125 0 Swedish $185 0 Hebrew 0 Catalan $225 $185 0 Swahili $195 0 Persian $125 0 Hungarian 0 Czech $295 $185 0 Tagalog $185 0 Polish 0 Italian $185 0 Danish $195 $185 0 Portuguese $215 0 Thai $125 0 Japanese 0 Dutch $195 0 Turkish (Brazilian) $22 $295 0 Khmer 0 Estonian $195 $195 0 Romanian $115 0 Ukrainian $185 0 Korean 0 French I $185 $225 0 Urdu $183 0 Russian $215 0 Lakota 0 French II 0 Vietnamese $225 You can order now with a full 3-week money-bick guarantee. ge." Call (203) 453-9794, fax (203) 453 9774, e-mail: 74537.550@compuserve.com I Or clip this ad and send with your name and address and a check or money order— or charge to any major credit card, by enclosing card number, expiratic n date, and your signature. Ask for our free 56-page Whole World Language Catalog with courses in 96 languages. THE LANGUAGE
souwer
Audio-Forum, Suite P707, 96 Broad Street, Guilford, CT 06437 U.S.A.
47
111.D% .1116?%11.16
-11.11e6.11161W-rml a 11 111r wl 1111 ;-111 1 INI 11.141/ 14.11 NM ME ON NII. MN• I
Modirn Lan nage Center
.ai:
MOIR - A. AM %Sit i I ',WAS MM.,
Registration always open Study Portuguese in Rio, June 20 - July 18,1997 Portuguese, Spanish, English (ESL), French, Italian In
TANIA HABERNORNiu PSICOTERAPEUTA BRASILEIRA O FASE DE TRANSICAO? O NAO SABE SE VAI OU FICA? O DEPRESSA09 O PROBLEMAS DE RELACIONAMENTO
Small groups and individual tutoring Lredentialed instructors
(310) 839-8427
(310) 840-5380 SUPERV. BY EDISON DE MELLO PRO MFCCn 021323
NV 30544
PORTUGUESE
LANGUAGE SERVICES (415) 587-4990
CERTIFIED TRANSLATIONS (TRADKAO JURAMENTADA) Legal, Medical, Scientific, Business Documents and School Transcripts Certified by the California Judicial Council and filed with the Brazilian Consulate Since 1981
1131F1115LFI1ICIi15 BARBARA MAGLIO
AXE n
://l/Z, Ceti/540/341e,
We bring you infectious ener 61, , a driving rhythm, and the most innovative Brazilian instrumental music
(310) 839-3788
soyEam PROMOTIONS ENTERTAINMENT
BRAZILIAN SHOWS LIVE BAND LIVE PERFORMANCES BRAZILIAN SAMBA SHOW GIRLS D.J. WITH ALL THE CURRENT HITS BRAZILIAN FOOD TROPICAL DECORATION AND EVERYTHING YOU WILL NEED TO MAKE YOUR PARTY COMPLETE
to & from Portuq_uese
• CQ
General a -Computer
u -▪ n
(561)391-1057 Fax: (561) 391-2174
CG
E-mail: bimaglio@compuserve.com
Folk
leATTORNEY f6 ATQVIEM1111,14 LAW/ABORADO/ADYNADO (818) 897-3661 IMMIGRATION MATTERS DEPORTATION DEFENSE
For more info or a list of our low prices please call:
1(800) 507-3653 Ter. & Fax: (562) 863-3463
SAN FERNANDO VALLEY
L_
CALIFORNIA
LI I WANT MORE INFORMATION ON ADVERTISING IN beig PLEASE SEND ME A MEDIA KIT.
COVPANY CONTACT: ADDRESS CrY, ST, ZIP: PHO PRODUCT:
CENTRO BRASILEIRO PARA,0 TRATAMENTO DE VIOLENCIA DOMESTICA, DROGAS, ALCOOLISMO, DEPRESSAO, SAUDE MENTAL EM GERAL
7635 FALLBROOK AVE.
WEST HILL, CA 91304
(818) 592-0402
IMMIGRAIMN ATTORNEY
STEVEN R. LANA,0011'1011 DAAL Ammo :0 0401100 lavers
Qualificacao para emprestimo de casa. Seu sonho pode se jL tornar realidade comprex nquelo cosa que voce sempre quiz ou 125% PE 'JD financiamento no sua casa propria, credito ruim, nenhum credito ou falencia Nos Telefone (310) 585 - 8911 Finance Plus Mortgage Corp.
• GREEN CARDS THROUGH MARRIAGE & FAMILY • EMPLOYMENT VISAS FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION WANLY PAYMENT NAN AVAILABLE
I ALSO HANDLING AUTOMOBILE ACCIDE \ITS I 1316 3rd Street - Suite 311 Santa Monica, CA 90401
Mk (310) 393-2828 [ WHEREVER YOU ARE IN THIS GALAXY
ZIL CONDMOVIONS WANTED
NEEDS
HUGE INCOME POTENTIAL FOR THOSE WHO KNOW ANYONE IN BRAZIL. LARGE SUCCESSFUL INTERNATIONAL COMPANY OPENING SOON. DEMAND ALREADY BUILDING. GRAB LARGE MARKET SHARE BY ACTING NOW.
1'01
MEMBER, STATE BAR OF CALIFORNIA
DP. JEFfEPSON SA
VOLUNTEERS FOR
PROOFREADING WRITING
MAINTAINING MAILING LIST & EVERYTHING ELSE
213-255-8062
NO INVESTMENT
brazzil@brazzil.com
(818) 887-7578
YOU CAN CHARGE YOUR AD IN
FX RETURN THIS FORM TO:
Master
BRAZZIL - P.O. BOX 42536 LOS ANGELES, CA 90050 Call (213)255-8062 or E-mail: brazzil@brazzil.com
For Ad, call (213) 255-8062 or E-mail: brazzil@brazzil.com 48
BRAZZIL -OCTOBER 1997
FEIRA LIVRE OPEN MARKET ACTORS/COMMERCIALS TV Commercials - Secrets of
DISCOVERING OPPORTUNITY Artist Needed. Talented Per-
"How You Can Star in Commercials and Make Big $$ Money". (All ages, all sizes, all ethnic groups.) Valuable report. Send $12 to M. C. Randell, Box 17564, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 [138]
formers, Entertainers, Song Writers Musicians, Producers Looking for Exposure, Contacts, Connections, Education. Visit our Web Site www.entertainersnet. corn. A World Network. Call Toll Free 1-888-310-4NET [142]
BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY Get paid at home!!! Assembly,
JOB OFFERED Precisamos de sambistas para
crafts, stuffing envelopes, etc. Send $3.00 and S.A.S.E for details. Work at home. 150 South Glenoaks Blvd. #9205Z Burbank, CA 91502 [142]
Singers wanted. Male/Female
International Company export-
Urgente! Wanted Portuguese-
ing to Brazil. High $ potential for individuals with contacts in Brazil. (805) 449-5507 [141]
English speaking communicable people. $$ 2000-4000 p/t, $$ 4000-8000 f/t. Call (818) 8120256 [141]
SOUTH AMERICA/EUROPE EXPANSION - Billion $ Cor-
porate expansion looking for individuals with contacts in Brazil and Europe. High income potential. 1(800) 337-0264 [141]
shows. (213) 812-7393 [140] English/Portuguese (310) 5595052 [143]
MISCELLANEOUS Agradecendo Graca Recebida
Vending Route for Sale - 50
- Orar o Salmo 38 tres vezes ao dia tres dias consecutivos. Publicar agradecendo graca recebida. B.A.R. [137]
locations. $800-$1200 per month income. Cost $2995 1(800) 9636123 [142]
Divido conteiner para Sao Paulo. Outubro ou novembro de
CATERING ATENCAO BRASILEIROS -
Cozinhamos na sua residencia para congelar. (562) 438-3415 [140] CLASSES Conversational Brasilian Portuguese Method - "I tried sev-
eral methods to learn BRAZILIAN PORTUGUESE, but when I started lessons with NIL SON, I knew immediately that I'd found the best one. And in just a few months, I was able to communicate on a one-on-one basis." Individual, Total Immersion, Corporate Group and Semi-Private. Phone (310) 379-0738 [141] Looking for a very fast, effi-
cient, and pleasant way to learn Brazilian Portuguese? (415) 9913476 [141] COOKING Delightful Brazilian Cooking
by Eng Tie Ang, two for one sale $14.95, plus $5 shipping and handling. Over 130 authentic, quick and easy recipes. P.O. Box 30818 - Seattle, WA 98103 Phone and Fax (206) 789-3693. [142] brazzil-ADS (213) 255-8062 BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
1997. Entre em contato corn Karla. (415) 334-1559 [140] Estude a Biblia por correspondencia na privacidade do seu lar. Inteiramente gratis. Envie seu endereco postal para: BCCI, Box 3841, Springfield, IL 627083841 [144] Swap post cards with everyone around the world. Fabio. P.O. Box 5765, Astoria, NY 11105 [142]
Music Brazilian Music in its totality.
Samba, bossa nova, chorinho, baiao, axe, and more. Merchant Express (954) 785-5991 Music for all occasions. Live, D.J. or Elvis impersonator. Affordable (213)469-2204 - Gerry [138] Norma Blase - soft Brazilian
jazz, bossa, samba. Vocal/guitar duo to larger ensemble. Oakland (510) 451-3639 [135] NEWSPAPERS & MAGAZINES
Jorn a is e revistas do Brasil. Recebemosiornais diarios e todas as principals revistas, incluindo masculinas e femininas. Tel. (954) 785-5991 PERSONAL
FEIRA LIVRE RATES: 50 a word. Phone is one word. DISCOUNTS: For 3 times deduct 5%. for 6 times deduct
10%, for 12 times deduct 15%. POLICY: All ads to be prepaid. Ads are accepted at our
discretion. Your canceled check is your receipt. Please, include address and phone number, w hich will be kept confidential. DEADLINE: The 25th of the month. Late material will be held for the following month if appropriate. TO PLACE AD: Send ad with check, money order or your Credit Card number (plus your name and expiration date) to: BRAZZIL P.O. Box 42536 Los Angeles, CA 90050-0536. WOMAN SEEKS MAN Americana corn coracao brasileiro, bem educada, que adora a
musica, o samba, cultura, a linguae o povo brasil iros, queria conhecer um brasil iro solteiro de 40 anos ou mais, e boa forma, morando em New Y rk City ou pertinho.Messages to E-mail: sylvia2125@aol.co [130] PERSONAL MAN SEEKS WOMAN American, male, wh te, 45 years
old, would like to m et a Brazilian or Portuguese la y. I speak English only. Age spen. Call (415) 757-1946 (Ev s) [142] mericano„ en repreneur
seeks Brazilian lady 8-36, open mind and attractive. end letter/ photo. Chris - 109 Minna St. #338 - San Francisco, A941053728 [136] Americano, 36, at ente, ro-
mantic° e sincero Procura brasileira 18-45. Envi foto para: 2440 - 16th St. #179, San Francisco, CA 94103 [14;] Americano, 38 an 's, olhos
azuis, fala portugu s, queria conhecer brasileira de 18 a 30 anos. Chamar William (310) 2047913 [139] English male, 39, Antique dealer, own business, financially secure, attractive, sop listicated, has toured Brazil, seeks slim attractive Brasileira for long-term relationship and to Share life. Send letters and photo to Mike, 50, Cranworth Rd., orthing, West Sussex, England tN112JF [141] Sort-of-American, orporate jaguar, very succesful, 33, needing some serious str s relief... looking for a very s y, furry Brazilian kitten to pla with. If you are 22-32, in Brazi or USA, no problem... I'll fly y u. Letter with photos to GS, 34 S. High,
land Ave. #14A, Pittsburgh, PA, 15206, USA [138] PERSONAL FRIENDSHIP AND CHATTING Male, 30, wants to meet Brazil-
ians to practice Portuguese. I studied for a year but need to practice. (818) 548-5935 [137] PSYCHOTHERAPY Chronic & Life Threatening illnesses, A.D.D. & dyslexia, life transitions, bicultural & relationship issues, sexual identity conflict — Edison de Mello,
M.D.; Ph.D./MFCC — Portuguese/ Spanish/ English. (310) 656-6987 [137] Emotional & psychological help -Elizabete Almeida MFCC
licensed psychotherapist. English/Portuguese. Reasonable rates. (310) 281-7536. [146] RENTAL VACATION IN BRAZIL - Beat
Hotel prices! Rent a condo in one of Rio's best areas. Pool, sauna, 2bdrm, suite, air, furnished, phone, security (510) 236-3684 [144] TAX A TTT Services - Tax & Trans-
lation & Travel and Notary (909) 627-2171 [146] TRANSLATION & INTERP. English to Portuguese, techni-
cal translation. Precise, fast turnaround - Ricardo Paoletti (716) 839-5310. Fax: (716) 839-5410. E-mail: paolett@ibm.net Translations - Barbara Maglio, to & from Portuguese, General and Computer. Tel.: (561) 3911057, Fax: (561) 391-2174, Email:bjmaglio compuserve.com [134] brazzil-ADS (213) 255-8062
TV & RADIO COAST TO COAST SHORT WAVE RADIO Radio Nacional da Amazonia - Daily, especially on evenings and early morning -6,180 & 11,780 Khz Radiobras - All universal time - From 12 noon to 1.20 PM, in English and from 1:30 PM to 2:50 PM, in Spanish 15,445 Khz BOSTON Coracao Brasileiro - Every Monday, 8:00 PM - 10:3 PM with Dennis Miller 88.1 FM - WMBR Brazilian Style of Music Every Friday, 11:00 am 2:00 pm, 91.5 FM, WMFO with Marlon Catao CHICAGO The Sounds of Brazil - Every Saturday, 10:00 pm Midnight, 95.5 FM, WNUA with Scott Adams Show Brazil - Every Friday, 8:00 am - 11.00 am, 91.5 FM, WMFO with Edna Moreno DENVER Brazilian Fantasy - Every Sunday, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm, 89.3 FM, KUVO LOS ANGELES TV Brazil TV - Buena Vision, Channels 6 or 56 (Mon. 8:30 pm); LBCTV-CVI (Long Beach & Signal Hill), Channel 57 or 65 (Wed. - 6:30 pm); CVI (San Fernando Valley), Channel 27 (Tue. 7:30 pm) RADIO Sounds of Brazil - Every Saturday, 1:00 PM - 3:00 pm, KPFK, 90.7 FM with Sergio Mielniczenko Brazilian Hour - Every Saturday and Sunday, 9:00 am - 10:00 am, KXLU, 88.9 FM with Sergio Mielniczenko MIAMI RADIO Brazilians Love Jazz - Every Sunday, 8:00 pm- 10:00 pm with Gina Martelli - 93.9 - Love 94
50
I; L11:4.1 B/AllU11111 BERKELEY, CAL. 9:00 PM - Carlos Oliveira & Liza Silva at Nino's
LOS ANGELES 9:00 PM - Katia Moraes at The Buffalo (Santa Monica) (310) 4508600 9:00 PM - Samba Tropical at Zabumba 10:00 PM - Kleber Jorge & Meia Noite at Mamagaya (310) 659-4999 1111.1111 eallikall=
ANAHEIM, CAL.
ANAHEIM, CAL. 7:00 PM - Sergio 2000 at Ginga Brasil
BEVERLY HILLS 8:00 PM: Noite Carioca at Beverly Hills Country Club - Benefit ball for City of Hope (213) 626-4611 ext. 6507
LOS ANGELES 9:00 PM - Katia Moraes at Luna Park (West Hollywood) (310) 652-0611 10:00 PM - Constellation Band at Café Danssa
NEN mu mum mom MIAMI
7:00 PM - Lois Sings Brazil at Ginga Brasil
8:00 PM - Guitarists Sergio and Odair Assad at University of Miami's Maurice Gusman Concert Hall (305) 284-4940
SAN FRANCISCO
8:00 PM - Lula & Afro Brasil at Zabumba 11.1MIUMmaxitamm
II/AW
10:00 PM - Liza Silva at Bahia Cabana
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. 7:30 PM - Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil (954) 561-8200
ANAHEIM, CAL.
LOS ANGELES LOS ANGELES 9:00 PM - Sergio Mendes & The Samba Girls at The Garden of Eden (310) 3850513 9:00 PM - Axe plays choro, baiao, and samba at Zabumba
7:00 PM - Lois Sings Brazil at Ginga Brasil
11.1111V14111014L1BLV1'4MEll
LOS ANGELES
9:00 PM - Lula & Afro Brasil at Carmelo's (714) 675-1922
III441171.Viti
9:00 PM - Kleber Jorge & Meia Noite at The Garden of Eden (310) 385-0513 9:00 PM - Axe plays choro, baiao, and samba at Zabumba
=‘1T14 91 14, 1 IT.V1011111111 CORONA DEL MAR 9:00 PM - Lula & Afro Brasil at Carmelo's (714) 675-1922
I
CORONA DEL MAR
BERKELEY, CAL. 9:00 PM - Carlos Oliveira & Adriana Moreno at Nino's
LOS ANGELES 9:00 PM - Samba Tropical at Zabumba 10:00 PM - Kleber Jorge & Meia Noite at Mamagaya (310) 659-4999
BERKELEY, CAL.
LOS ANGELES
9:00 PM -Carlos Oliveira & Adriana Moreno at Nino's
10:00 PM - MILA Samba School at Café Danssa
SAN FRANCISCO 7:00 PM -Amazon Jorna I -Sounds of the Amazon at Roxie Cinema (415) 398-4404
LOS ANGELES 9:00 PM - Samba Tropical at Zabumba 10:00 PM - Kleber Jorge & Meia Noite at Mamagaya (310) 659-4999 1.11Mi lanIkial.111
LOS ANGELES 9:00 PM - Sam baLS at Zabumba 10:00 PM - MILA Samba School at Cafe Danssa
ANAHEIM, CAL. 7:00 PM - Sergio 2000 at Ginga Brasil
111.1:11.11 till Z1 I1AW-44.1111111 FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. 7:30 PM - Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil (954) 561-8200
SAN FRANCISCO 8:00 PM-An Evening of Serenatas at Gold Mine Hill Club (415) 3340106 10:00 PM - Liza Silva & Voz do Brasil at Bahia Cabana
ANAHEIM, CAL. 7:00 PM - Lois Sings Brazil at Ginga Brasil T MIIIMMAA6.11.1111
The third annual New Vision Florida/Brazil Festival in Miami will run for the whole month of November with art expos, movies (Gaiiin and New Gaucho Cinema), and musical programs. For details call (305) 324-4337 or visit http://www.tigertail.org 111 1Lelas/AVAIIIIIIM
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. 7:00 PM - Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil (954) 561-8200
ANAHEIM, CAL. 7:00 PM - Lois Sings Brazil at Ginga Brasil
LOS ANGELES 10:00 PM - Constellation Band at Café Danssa
111 1 LOS ANGELES 9:00 PM - MILA Band & Samba School at The Garden of Eden (310) 385-0513 9:00 PM - Axe plays choro, baiao, and BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
calendar - oct/nov 97 u.s.a. samba at Zabumba
LOS ANGELES
TI 4 91 1441 SAN FRANCISCO
9:00 PM - Samba Tropical at
Zabumba 10:00 PM - Kleber Jorge & Meia Noite at Mamagaya (310) 6594999
9:30 PM - Terra do Mar (Land of the Sea)
documentary at Castro Theater (415) 8638113
amixaram MIAMI BEACH
CORONA DEL MAR, CAL. 9:00 PM - Lula & Afro Brasil at Carmelo's
(714) 675-1922 11111.1Mull
8:00 PM - Milton Nascimento at
Jack Gleason Theater (305) 3585885 8:00 PM - Lia Rodrigues presents Folia, a dance program, at Colony Theater (305) 672-5202
BERKELEY, CAL. 9:00 PM - Carlos Oliveira & Liza Silva at
Nino's
LOS ANGELES
ANAHEIM, CAL.
9:00 PM - Samba Tropical at Zabumba 10:00 PM - Kleber Jorge & Meia Noite at
7:00 PM - Brazilian Music at Ginga
Brasil
Mamagaya (310) 659-4999 11111Mnal1 IM:firAMMIll
tilINBEM MIAMI BEACH
BOSTON
8:00 PM - Susana Yamauchi presents a Japanese-Brazilian dance program at Colony Theater (305) 672-5202
8:00 PM - Milton Nascimento at Berklee
Performance Center (617) 931-2000
ANAHEIM, CAL.
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL.
7:00 PM - Brazilian Music at Ginga Brasil
7:30 PM - Claudio Fornaro at Bra+
zil-Brazil (954) 561-8200
MIAMI
ANAHEIM, CAL.
9:00 PM -Arnaldo Antunes from Titas with Alfredo Triff at Ambrosino Gallery (305)
7:00 PM- Brazilian Music Pt Ginga
Brasil
324-4337 - Free
7:30 PM - Claudio Fornaro at Brazil-Brazil
Ill41 9/AW CHICAGO
ANAHEIM, CAL.
House of Blues (312) 559-1212
FORT LAUDERDALE, FL. (954) 561-8200
11:00 PM - Milton Nascimento at
i; al 911.ViNVM LOS ANGELES
7:00 PM - Brazilian Music at Ginga Brasil 1.1 1 . 11.10111M11111.11.
10:00 PM - Kleber Jorge & Meia
NEW YORK 8:00 PM - Milton Nascimento at Town Hall
(212) 307-7171
IMISTATIII 14, 1 BIM&
Noite at Mamagaya (310) 6594999 .11Maj1 pailltiMMIN
CORONA DEL MAR 9:00 PM - Lula & Afro Brasil at Carmelo's
(714) 675-1922 111.111.WAZIMMEMIMMI
BERKELEY, CAL. 9:00 PM - Carlos Oliveira & Adriana Moreno at Nino's
MIAMI
BERKELEY Ashkenaz - 1317 San Pablo Ave. (510) 525-5054 Nino's - 1916 Martin L. King Jr. (510) 845-9303
LOS ANGELES
NEW YORK RADIO Brasil corn S - Every Saturday, 9:00 PM with Judith King, 88.3 FM - WBGO Canta Brasil - Every Saturdday, 8 00 AM -93.1 FM -WPAT Radio Amaz6nia - Every day, 6.30 PM on short wave -6.185 MHZ TV Brazil News - Every Wednesday, 8:30 PM - Channel 34 Brazil Update - Every Saturday, 3.30 PM - Channel 69 Brazilians in America-TV Every Sunday, 5.30 PM -Channel 16 Media Flux: Brasil - Every Saturday, 4:00 PM - Ch. 16
Brasileirinho - Every Wednesday, 9.30 PM, KZSC, 88.1 FM with Renato Frota Brasil Musical - Every Sunday, 1.00 PM - 5:00 PM, Radio Bilingue, 91.5 FM via satellite, with Ricardo and Amarina Pugh - Fresno Canta, Brasil - Every Sunday, 6.00 PM - 8.00 PM - KKUP, 91.5 FM, with Xuxu, Maria Jose and David Heyman Programa de Domingo - Every Sunday, 1:00 PM - 2.00 PM, KSQQ 96.1 FM with Lino Bugatti A Taste of Brazil - Every Sunday, 11:00 PM - 12.00 AM, KKSF, 103.7 with Dick Conte SO Da Brasil - Every Friday, 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM, KUSF, 90.3 with Jorge Lima & Simone Odom
111M:1i1 IIINBJAWAIMII LOS ANGELES 10:00 PM - Milton Nascimento at House of Blues (213) 480-3232 11.11111WWIAMAMMINII
MIAMI BEACH 5:00 PM - Villa Lobos & Debussy
(310) 628-9789 La Ve Lee - 12514 Ventura BI. - Studio City - (818) 980-8158 Zabumba -10717 Venice Blvd Culver City -(310) 841-6525
MIAMI
SOB -200 Varick St. (212)307717! Supper Club - 240 W. 47 St. (212) 921-1940 Scala Brazil - 35-50 31st St. Astoria (718) 937-0352
Brazil Samba Café - Hollywood (954) 920-4426 Scala Miami -(305) 371-5604
'Yoshi's - 6030 Claremont Ave. (510) 652-9200
OAKLAND, CAL.
-14 Below - 1348 14th St., Santa
NEW YORK
S. FRANCISCO
Monica -(310) 451-5040 Cafe Danssa - 11533 W. Pico BI. West L.A.- (310) 478-7866 Tony's -701 Long Beach Blvd.
Blue Note - 131 West 3rd St. (212) 475-8592 Café Wha - 115 MacDougal St. -(212) 254-3706
Bahia Cabana -(415)861-4202 Chambord - 152 Kearney St.
BRA77IL - OCTOBER 1997
Luqui Corporation - Jornal Bandeirantes - 11.00 pm 1.00 am, Dynamic ch. 20, S South ch. 41, Gold Coast ch 44, DCI ch. 45
S. FRANCISCO
at Lincoln Theater (305) 358-5885
ANAHEIM, CAL.
BTN (Brazilian TV Network) 11.00 pm - 1.00 am, DCI ch 40, S South ch. 51, Adelphia ch. 52, Gold Coast ch 99
SAN FRANCISCO
9:00 PM - Baden Powell at Coral Gables
Ginga Brazil - 821 N. Euclid, (714) 778-0266
TV
9:00 PM - Milton Nascimento at
Warfield Theater (415) 334-0106
Congregational Church (305) 672-5202
TV & RADIO
WASHINGTON, DC Waves of Patropi - Every Saturday, 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM, WDCU, 90 FM with Andre Lacerda
(415) 434-3688 Coconut Grove-(415)776-1616
51
Boston Area Books Livraria Plenitude (800) 532-5809 Consulate Consulado G. do Brasil (617) 617-542-4000 Dentist Sylvio P. Lessa (617) 924-1882 Food & Products Aqui Brazil (617) 787-0758 Brasil Brasil (617) 561-6094 Jerry's Cachaca (617) 666-5410 Instruction Approach Student Ctr (617) 787-5401 Braz. & Amer. Lg. Inst. (617) 787-7716 Music Brazil CDs (617) 666-3747 Publications The Brazilian Monthly (617) 566-3651 Bossa: Braz. Jazz Guide (617) 262-9997 Restaurants Café Brazil (617) 789-5980 Ipanema (508) 460-6144 Tropicana (617) 567-4422 Pampas Churrascaria (617) 661-6613
Chicago Consulate Consulado G. do Brasil (312) 464-0244 Translations Portuguese Lang. Ctr. (312) 276-6683
Los Angeles Accountant Sheila Shanker (310) 836-1436 Airlines yang (800) GO VARIG Vasp (310) 364-0160 Arts & Crafts Bakari Art Studio (213) 938-0523 Folk Creations (310) 693-2844 Culture Planet (310) 441-9808 Zebi Designs (310) 391-6530 Auto Repair Cosmo Auto Parts (213) 259-9818 Banks Banco do Brasil (213) 688-2996 Catering Joy's Catering (562) 438-3415 Churches lgreja Evang. Bras. (714) 534-9437 FOR ADS (213) 255-8062 52
Clothes Samba Collection (562) 437-1939 Summer Brazil (310) 455-1772 Clubs & Associations Brazil-Cal. Chbr of Corn. (310) 665-0166 Centro Cultural Gaucho (213) 256-6548 MILA - Samba School (310) 391-6098 SambaLi -Esc. de Samba (562) 437-1939 Consulate Brazilian Consulate (213) 651-2664 Dentists Gilberto Henriques (213) 464-0524 Events Promotion Brazil 'N You Prom. (562) 863-3463 Brazilian Nites Prod. (818) 566-1111 Pegasus - Parties & Ent. (818) 549-0383 Sayegh Promotions (800) 507-3653 Health & Fitness Herbs from Brazil (213) 851-7016 Westside Acupuncture (310) 914-1624 Instruction Brasil Brasil Cult. Ctr (310) 397-3667 Modern Lang. Center (310) 839-8427 Legal Services Meiojas & Ferraz (310) 360-0901 Loans Finance Plus Mort. Corp. (310) 585-8911 Music Braz. Jazz /All Occasions (310) 839-3788 Jazz - Richard Samuels (818) 798-5424 Physician Paulo Coharte (310) 285-9670 Dick) Rangel (310) 828-7454 Ingrid Rodi - Gynec. (310) 451-8144 Nilson A. Santos (213) 483-3430 PsychotherfCounsel. Elizabeth Almeida, M.A. (310) 281-7536 Dr. Jefferson Si (818) 592-0402 Tania Haberkorn, M.A. (310) 840-5380 Publications Brazzil (213) 255-8062 Real Estate Cent. 21 - Solon Pereira (310) 633-0787 Cold. Banker -J. Freitag (818) 304-9562 Restaurants & Cafés Big Fish (310) 676-9962 Bossa Nova (310) 657-5070 Brazilian Tropical (714) 720-1522 By Brazil (310) 787-7520 Café Brasil (310) 837-8957 Ginga Brasil (714) 778-0266 Lulu's Alibi (310) 479-6007
Volie's Brazilian Steak (714) 251-0722 Zabumba (310) 841-6525 TranslationlInterp. Brazilian Int. Affairs (310) 854-5881 Tocantins Communic. (818) 248-3667 Travel/Tours Around the World Trl. (800) 471-6333 Brazil Air (800) 441-8515 Brazil Tours (818) 767-1200 Cheviot Hills Travel (310) 202-6264 Traveland (800) 321-6336
Miami Airlines Transbrasil (800) 872-3153 yang (800) 468-2744 Vasp (800) 732-8277 Banks Banco do Brasil (305) 358-3586 Banco Nacional (305) 372-0100 Banco Real (305) 358-2433 Banespa (305) 358-9167 Clubs & Associations ABFC -As. Bras. da nor. (407) 354-5200 Cam. Corn. Brasil- EUA (305) 579-9030 ARA1RA - Amazon. As. (813) 842-3161 Consulate Consulado do Brasil (305) 285-6200 Dentists Arnaldo Souza (305) 595-3238 Hedimo de Si (305) 262-8212 Food & Beverages All Braz. Imp. & Exp. (305) 523-8134 Guarani Esteves (305) 345-1540 Via Brasil (305) 866-7718 Physicians Dr. Jorge Macedo (305) 271-7311 Dr. Mario Sanches (305) 541-7819 Dr. Neri Franzon (305) 776-1412 Publications Florida Review (305) 374-5235 Restaurants Brazilian Tropicana (305) 781-1113 Brazilian Delight (305) 374-0032 Brazilian Pie (305) 866-1001 Cheese Bread House (305) 443-5358 Gula Gula (305) 532-3636 Travel Aner.ce s Brazilian Wave (305) 561-3788 Discover Brazil Tours (800) 524-3666 Euroamirica (305) 358-3003 International Tours (800) 822-1318
Luma Travel (305) 374-8635 Monark Travel (305) 374-5855 New Port Tours (305) 372-5007 Venture Travel (305) 379-7678 Via Brasil Travel (305) 866-7580
New York N. Jersey Books Luso-Brazilian Books (800) 727-LUSO Clubs & Associations Brazilian Ch. of Corn. (212) 575-9030 Brazilian Corn. Bureau (212) 916-3200 Brazilian Trade Bur. (212) 224-6280 Consulate Brazilian Gen. Cons. (212) 757-3080 Food & Products Amazonia (718) 204-1521 Coisa Nossa (201) 578-2675 Merchant Express (201) 589-5884 Publications The Brasilians (212) 382-1630 Brazilian Voice (201) 955-1137 OCA Magazine (516) 596-1853 Portugal-Brasil News (212)228.2958 Samba Newsletter (718) 937-0574 Restaurants Brasilia (212) 869-9200 Brazil 2000 (212) 877-7730 Brazilian Pavillion (212) 758-8129 Cabana Carioca (212) 581-8088 Indigo Blues (212) 221-0033 S.O.B. (212) 243-4940 Tapajas River (201) 491-9196 Travel Agencies Barb Tour Service (201) 313-0996 Odyssea Travel Service (212) 826-3019
San Diego Clubs & Associations Clube Bras. San Diego (619) 295-0842 Sunday Night Cl. Brazil (619) 233-5979 Import/Export Brazil Imports (619) 234-3401 Money RemittancE Vigo-California (619) 479-V1GO
San Francisco Airlines yang (415) 986-5737 Vasp (800) 732-VASP Attorney
Manoel Faris (510) 537-3533 Ralph Baker (510) 444-8100 Auto Nilson Auto Body (415) 255-6717 Malls Auto Body (415) 565-3560 Beauty Salon Bibbo (415) 421-BIBO Carmen's International (415) 433-9441 Neyde's (415) 681-5355 Clubs & Associations B.A.S.O. (415) 661-2788 Bay Area Brasilian Club (415) 334-0106 Brazilian Cult. Movem. (415) 437-6991 Dance& MusicSum. Camp (510) 655-8207 Computer Micronet (415) 665-1994 Consulate Brazilian Consulate (415) 981-8170 Dance Instruction Aqua rela (510) 548-1310 Brazil Culture & Arts (510) 215-8202 Ginga Brasil (510) 428-0698 Escola Nova de Samba (415) 661-4798 Samba do Coracao (415) 826-2588 Samba, Swing & Suor (415) 282-7378 Dental Care Roberto Sales, DDS (510) 451-8315 Events Promotion F. B. C. Events (415) 334-0106 Nativa Productions (408) 287-9798 Food Brazilian Coffee Dist. (415) 648-5966 California Produce (415) 586-6200 HGC Imp. Wholesale (408) 947-8511 Instruction Portuguese- A. Frame (510) 339-9289 Portuguese Lang. Serv. (415) 587-4990 Money Remittance Brasil Express (415) 673-0262 Vigo (415) 863-0218 West Brazil (415) 695-9258 Music Cilia Malheiros (415) 738-2434 Damien's Intercambio (415) 595-2274 Fogo na Roupa (510) 464-5999 Marcos Silva (510) 945-0138 Terra Sul (415) 752-9782 Viva Brazil (415) 342-8508 Voz do Brazil (415) 586-2276
Musical Instruments Tamborim & Samba (415) 871-2201 Physician Dr. Guilherme Salgado (415) 832-6219 Printing NI. C. Printing (510) 268-8967 Publications Brazil Today (510) 526-1115 Brazzil (415) 587-4990 RestauriNight Clubs Bahia Cabana (415) 861-4202 Balboa Braz. Rest. (415) 387-1118 Café do Brasil (415) 626-6432 Café Mardi Gras (415) 864-6788 Canto do Brasil (415) 626-8727 Joio's Restaurant (408) 244-1299 Little Rio (415) 441-3344 Michelangelo Café (415) 986-4058 Mozzarela Di-Bufala (415) 346-9888 Nino's (510) 845-9303 Porto Brasil (510) 526-1500 Stelladoro (415) 928-2662 Tropicilia (408) 471-0294 Translation Port. Lang. Services (415) 587-4990 Travel Agencies Rio Roma (415) 921-3353 Santini Tours (510) 843-2363 Travel Americas (415) 334-0404 , Tropical Travel (510) 655-9904 Tucanos Travel (415) 454-9961 Winship Travel (415) 863-2717
Airlines Transbrasil (202) 775-9180 yang (202) 331-8913 Vasp (202) 822-8277 Banks Banco do Brasil (202) 857-0320 Banco do Est. de S. Paulo (202) 682-1151 Clubs & Associations Braz. Am. Cult. Inst. (202) 362-8334 Inst. of Brazil. Business (202) 994-5205 Embassy Embaixada do Brasil (202) 238-2700 Restaurants AmazOnia Grill (202) 537-0421 Travel Agencies Intern. Discount Travel (703) 750-0101 BFtAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
MERCHANT
CM cc UM BRAZILIAN FOOD
EXPRESS 900 900 E. ATLANTIC BLVD, #6
BEST FOOD. AUTHENTICALLY PREPARED TO BRING YOU A TRUE TASTE OF BRAZIL!
POMPANO BEACH, FL 33060 TEL:
CLOSED ON MONDAYS FRIDAY & SATURDAY. 11 AM - 11 PM OTHER DAYS 11 AM - 10 PM
(954) 785-5991
BRAZILIAN MUSIC IN ITS TOTALITY
3621 18TH ST. SF-CA 94103
(415) 626-8727
Samba, Bossa Nova, Jazz, Rock, Chorinho, Lambada, Baicio, Frevo, Axe Musk, World Music, and more.
IN THE MISSION DISTRICT BETWEEN GUERRERO & DOLORES ST
CD'S AND TAPES MAIL DELIVERY AVAILABLE
than ever to have a Beautiful Smile.
We have 07T interest payment plan available for as LOW as $10 per month. Call for details!
DR. GilbERTO HENRiQUES (21-3)4-0S2.4 1777 N. Vine St., Suite 407 Hollywood, CA 90028-5218 www.PublicOnLine.comi= DrGlienriques I : Dr( I I en rig ues@cypro.n et
SUPER MOO BRASIL
MUDANPAS PARA 0 BRASIL
BRAZILIAN MARKET
CARGAS AEREAS E MARiTIMAS. OS MELHORES PRECOS DO MERCADO
, MAIS: TEMOS VEJA, ISTO E, GUARANA, SUCOS DE FRUTA, MANCHETE, CARAS... CAFE, GOIABADA, CANJICA, TEMOS TAMBEM FUBA, FAROFA, CHOCOLATES, JORNAL DO_BRASIL, SABONETE PHEBO, FOLHA DE SAO PAULO, 0 ESTADO DE S. PAULO, FITAS CASSETE E MUITO MAIS 0 GLOBO E JORNAIS DE TODOS OS ESTADOS MAIL DELIVERY AVAILABLE
DIVIDIMOS CONTEINER SERMMOS OS PORTOS DO RIO DE JANEIRO, SANTOS, RIO GRANDE, RECIFE, SALVADOR, VITORIA, PARANAGUA E SAO FRANCISCO DO SUL, ALEM DOS PRINCIPAIS AEROPORTOS BRASILEIROS
Focus on Brazil
LIGUE E CONFIRA! Tel: (310) 676-8483 Fax: E-Mail:
Now it's easier
DENTIST
Daniala Mercury, Olodum, Banda Mel, Raw Negra, Alcione, Caetano, Djavan, Milton Nascimento, Clementina de Jesus, Beth Carvalho, Margareth Menezes, Rosa Maria, Leny Andrade, Elza Soares, Marina, Elba Ramalho, Tania Alves, Ivan Lins, Joao Gilberto, Tom Jobim, Vinicius de Morais, Toquinho, Roberto Carlos, Nelson Ned, Legido Urbana, Chico Buarque, Paralamas doSucesso, Barrio Vermelho, Elis Regina, Nara Ledo, Cartola, Maria Milani°, Gal Costa, Noel Rosa, Carmen Miranda, Gilberto Gil, MPB-4, Adoniram Barbosa, Moreira do Silva, Wagner Tiso, Sergio Mendes, Martinho do Vila, Jair Rodrigues, Jorge Benjor, Zeca Pagodinho, Bezerra do Silva, Nand Vasconcelos, Luiz Gonzaga, Akeu Valenca,Cazuza, Leila Pinheiro, Nelson Cavaquinho, Villa Lobos, Waldir Azevedo, Dilermondo Reis and many others...
10826 Venice Blvd. - 5-6 - Culver City, CA 90232 Tel & Fax:(314837-4291
(310) 355-0957
focus-on-brazil©juno.com •
MERCHANT EXPRESS
GH as
fl E 1 P PI 411114 -- Toi ):/- t ALL YOU NEED TO MAKE YOUR PARTY A COMPLETE SUCCESS
900 E. ATLANTIC BLVD, #6 POMPANO BEACH, FL 33060
LIMOUSINE
TEL: (954) 785-5991
G.LL LILL[Lta, cft
Latai
11= DEIIVERY AVTIIPLE BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
• WAITRESS
' HALL DECORAT ON
OLIVE SHOW ENTER INMENT cPARTY COORDINATOR FoR mix IN =
1(800) 1111FREE
iJBARTENDERS
' PHOTOGRAPHY VIDEO
V CATERING
• LIVE BRAZILIAN BAND BRAZIL N' YOU DJ MUSIC OR
507-3653I'D'E FAX
(562) 863-3463 53
An excerpt
Rio Risque In a city brimming with earthly delights, one's thoughts turn to finding a little romance before Carnaval ends. CAL FUSSMAN From where Christ stands on the mountaintop above Rio de Janeiro, His arms outstretched, He can take in all of Carnaval. He can watch men reach out and stroke, with total impunity, any flesh that sashays by amid the heat, smoke, and samba. He can watch women respond by clamping their thighs around kneecaps, tossing their heads back and grinding toward Heaven and Hell. Beneath His gaze, foreigners are ordering prostitutes as easily as beers. Health activists are prancing through the streets costumed as condoms, to remind everyone of the raging AIDS epidemic. This is a city where murders are commonplace, where tourists pass graffiti that reads "WHERE THERE IS HUNGER THERE IS NO LAW." A city where soldiers—carrying FAL assault rifles and grenades and wearing ski masks to avoid reprisals—come in tanks, armored cars, and helicopters to combat drug gangs that have taken over entire neighborhoods. This is a city that spends millions on spangles and feathers and parade floats while homeless children scavenge amid the rubble. From high upon that mountaintop, Christ can see one pure man and one pure woman, born thousands of miles apart, heading toward each other. And maybe, above all the crime and lust and fear and violence, that is why His arms remain outstretched. You don't simply step off the plane at the airport in Rio and explode into sexual shrapnel. No, you're tired, and your neck is a little sore from the all-night flight, and your eyes are blinking away the sun that is suddenly pressing upon your skin and drying your throat, and you just want to reach your hotel on Copacabana Beach so you can change and then relax on the white sand. And once there, as the women pass like a delightful breeze that brings a shiver, you realize that Carnaval lasts for nearly a week and you have to save yourself. So you lean back under the pillowy clouds and sip the syrupy water from a coconut that's been slashed open with a machete by a man in a hut covered with palm fronds, and you imagine the possibilities of the wildest party in the world. That's when you notice the woman with straight, blunt clipped brown hair adjusting the two tiny seashells of purple nylon that barely stretch over her breasts. Anna Luiza is her name. Out of the corner of her eye she's scanning the white sand for skin that is untouched by sun: foreign skin. She's heard that sometimes foreigners are faithful. Not that she wouldn't be happy with an honest Brazilian man. It's just that such a thing is hard to come by in a city where local legend has it that there are seven women for every man. "Is the ratio really seven to one?" a distinguished sociologist in Rio once wondered. "But I have only three I must be inattentive." It doesn't matter that Anna Luiza is in her own way beautiful. There is so much grace and elegance along this necklace of beach that she is an afterthought. Anna Luiza is not tall, lithe, flirtatious like the others who pass by in a parade of poetic nudity, like the two friends stretched out beside her. Madalena, to her right, is the type who inspires the honey-lyricked songs about Brazil heard around the world, and there is something about the savageness of Soraya's black hair and the daring play in her flaming charcoal eyes that will always lure your gaze before you turn to Anna Luiza's softer, rounder figure. At 27, Anna Luiza is seeing her friends marry and drift away; her anxiety is rounding the bend toward desperation. She's living in a city where thugs scissor hair off women's heads and sell it to wigmakers; where fear of theft and attack forces her to spend more and more weekend nights in front of the thirteeninch Toshiba in her living room. And now that she's at the beach, she's reading a passing man s T-shirt: "IF I WERE YOU, I WOULD GIVE ME A KISS." Some of the women whose nails she manicures at \work, the wealthy ones who've taken trips to Europe and America, have sworn to her that men there are faithful. Not all, but many. Ah, it's absurd, she tells herself. She is shy among Brazilians. What would she possibly say to a foreigner? And yet, as she lies back under the clouds that caress the mountaintops, Anna Luiza is quietly thrilled. This is her first Carnaval in Rio. She moved here with her mother and sister not long ago from the countryside. Madalena and Soraya have made the trip from their hometown to help her celebrate, allowing her to flip off the Toshiba and head out to taste the sizzle of the night.
54
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
In the plastic window of a pocketsize photo album in her apartment, Anna Luiza has pasted a thought balloon above a photo that captures her face in dreamy expression. Words inside the balloon say "Saia dessa vida," which literally means "Leave this life" but really translates as "If only I could find something better...." But a faithful man in Rio de Janeiro during Carnaval? Do snowflakes fall upon Copacabana Beach? As Ken walks along the black and white sidewalk tiles that flow alongside that beach like waves, his head appears to be in a pinball machine—ricocheting each time it's struck by the sight of fresh breasts. It would be unfair to call Ken by the name on his birth certificate, because just now Ken is not himself. In ordinary life, he never gets lost. He never stands with an open mouth in front of passing women. But this week he is like everyone else. Everybody becomes a different person during Carnaval. For months he's worked sixteen-hour days in a laboratory. Now, his snowwhite skin gives off a scent that widens the nostrils of a barefoot black boy who sleeps on the streets and survives by slicing camera straps off passing shoulders with a knife fashioned from a crushed soda can. Either a German or an American, the boy senses—and both have money. The boy eyes the glasses sliding down the foreigner's long, sweaty nose, then the back pockets for bulges and the socks for rolled bills. This is the type, the boy is sure, who will hand over everything without a fight if the jagged edges of a broken bottle are held to his neck. The boy must decide ifthe evening is yet drunk enough for him to get away with that. Carnaval is just starting—the street just beginning to succumb to the rhythm of samba surging from the barechested musicians at a sidewalk café. The pale foreigner walks past a teenager nibbling the earlobe of a girl with heavy-lidded eyes and steps into a beehive of activity— bellhops carting luggage, vendors hawking T-shirts, artists pointing to paintings, taxi drivers and moneychangers hooking tourists by the arm. Chaos is as opportune as desolation. The boy remains ten steps behind. He glances around and sees a policeman whose muscles swell under his Tshirt, on the back of which are printed words the boy can't read. "I'M LOOKING OUT FOR YOU," they say in English, reassuring foreigners who've heard news reports about invasions by hordes from the favelas in the overlooking mountains. "Arrastlio," this type of assault is called: a wall of human piranhas, devouring all in their path. The foreigner stops and spins like the needle on a broken compass. Fi-
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
nally, he heads into a towering hotel, where a bowl of room-service spaghetti costs $20, and leaves the boy standing in the street with a vague grinding in his stomach. It's in the hotel lobby that I spot him. "There he is," I say to my wife." See. The blond hair. Coming this way." "He looks so lost," Docinha says in English that is flavored by her Brazilian accent. It's been two years since she joined me in America. She shakes her head. By the end of Carnaval," I say, "he'll have two mulatas on each arm." "Him? No way! Look at that face," she answers with a laugh that makes her hands instinctively calm the jiggle of her pregnant belly. "He's too innocent." I watch the glasses slide down that long nose. Then Ken's head swivels toward a backside that looks like a perfectly formed apple sliced down the center. "I'll bet you he makes love before the week is out," I say, feeling my jaw jut out a dare. "It's Carnaval. I'll bet you anything." She extends a hand to make the bet,1 then pulls it back when she sees me staring at a prostitute. 'Oh, no," she says. "Not like that. He's got to do it naturally." "No problem," I say. "What's your bet?" "If he gets through Carnaval without making love, I get to name our baby whatever I want." I cringe, for we fought over names' during much of the plane ride from New York until we met Ken, and I now imagine my poor son taunted and having the shit beat out of him in a junior high schoolyard because some tall, gawky white chemist didn't get laid. "And what's yours?" Docinha asks My smile raises the ante. "If I win," I say, "I come back to Carnaval next year. Alone." Relief lights Ken's face when he spots us. Three days earlier, his flight landed. Three days from now his flight will leave. He has decided to let himself go wild for the first time in his life. And all he has to show for it so far is a stiff neck and a slack jaw. He can feel the anxiety building. As he steps toward us, he nearly bumps into a white V-necked blouse that comes to a point at a creamedcoffee-colored belly button. The treasure trove is richer than he imagined, but because he doesn't know the language he is naturally shy and can't let his body speak, he can't touch what lies at his fingertips. For years he's been sitting stiff at the spines of his textbooks. In all his 27 years, he's never gotten drunk, never made love to a woman, and if you ask him why, he'll joke, "I'm a geek!" He recently decided to become a
doctor, to work on humans in the real world instead of chemicals in a vacuum, and he's been accepted by one of America's best medical schools. But before he takes on four more years of rigid discipline and $80,000 of debt, he wants to lose himself in feathers and spangles. There is no choice now. This pregnant Brazilian woman and her American husband, whom he met on the plane, will have to open the doors to this world he cannot enter alone. Ken swallows when we are joined by an immense, silent black man who wears sunglasses even though it is now dark. "This is Valmir," I say. Valmir's hands are large enough to crush him like a beer can. Some of Ken's friends back home had seen the news and warned him about Rio. It is only that little swelling of belly beside him that is getting him through this. A pregnant woman could not possibly be leading him somewhere he might regret for the rest of his life. And then, suddenly, he is tucked into a cab, which veers into the darkness, and there is no escape from his escape. "You really should dance in the parade with us," Docinha gets Ken's attention by touching him on the wrist. "I was born a thousand miles north of here, and it was always my dream. People in the neighborhoods around Rio spend the whole year making costumes and floats for the competition. It's their life. Fights break out when judges announce the scores. We're trying to arrange costumes with one of the best groups." "But I don't know how to samba," Ken protests. "I wouldn't be losing points for them, would I " "Just relax and have a good time," I say, smiling at Docinha, "and they'll love you." Neon takes over the night. The taxi stops down the street from a huge club with luminous peacock feathers fanning out over its entrance. The door opens on a three tiered theater of color and cleavage, on women with red fishnet stockings, on strings of pearls dripping from tight black tangas, on nipples protruding through lacy bras, on feathery Indian headdresses and devil masks. I lean toward Ken's ear. "As the poet said, 'There is no sin below the equator." Sparkling high heels samba at twelve beats a second under flashes of sunburst yellows, molten reds and flaming oranges to the music of a trumpet and slide trombone band that blares through speakers the size of monuments. Valmir extends a beer to Ken with a smile. I extend a second and a third. Valmir is good for the fourth and fifth. Soon the dance floor floods and shirtless men and viola-shaped women take refuge on the tabletops. Women approach Ken to dance, and through the smoky haze he notices the beads of sweat
55
above their upper lips and the moist strands of hair clinging to their temples and their swaying hips and their eyes, which either ask for or promise too much. He dances without connecting, and each woman eventually drifts off and is replaced by another café-au-lait face with moist, gleaming lips. And then the party begins to heat up. A group of black teens with shaved heads takes the stage and, pounding drums roped around their necks, sends the crowd into a frenzy, inciting a woman to stand on the table I've reserved and swish her ass only a centimeter from my nose, causing Docinha to grip my chin and yank my gaze back toward her mock smile. Ken floats toward a woman riding a man's thigh as if it were a fire pole, past Valmir, who is being summoned by three gyrating women; past two pudgy men squeezed into taut bathing suits and pressing their genitals together in rhythmic delirium. Ken's eyes close for a minute within the swirl of plume, sparkle, breast, thigh, and ass, and some part of him is up in the smoke. "You can name our first ten children," I yowl over the din at my wife, "if the guy doesn't get laid!" Of course, from where the 120-foot Christ stands on the mountaintop, it must have been easy to see why it all occurred. From there it would have been perfectly clear why the city below— with its mountains that rise from the ocean like buttocks, its tropical birds twittering, its butterflies shivering with bursts of color, its woozy sun and powdery beaches that make a human feel foolish in clothes—became the global capital of sex. From here He could have watched, with great relief, the first boats from Europe arrive in 1502. Relief because the Portuguese explorers who began the colonization of Brazil preferred to make love to the red skinned natives, as opposed to the Spanish, who settled much of the rest of the continent and preferred to kill them. Over the next three centuries, Brazil's genetic mix was made even more exotic by the blacks brought in chains from Africa to chop sugarcane in the 16th century, mine gold in the 17th, and work the coffee fields in the 18th. Though Carnaval dates back to the pre-Lent bacchanalia in Venice in the 11th century, it wasn't until early in the 20th century, after Portugal had given Brazil its independence, that Rio's lust exploded, inflamed by the abandonment of its people, some of whom inherited too much and most of whom were left with nothing at all. "But how do I know when they like me?" Ken asks. The smoke has evaporated into a clear afternoon—Day Four—and he is riding in a taxi with my
wife and me on a raised highway to visit some friends who are arranging costumes for the parade. "Things will go a lot easier if you just assume that they do," I say. "But how do I know they're not prostitutes? I don't want that kind of woman. I want it to be natural." "Exactly the way it should be," I say, glancing at Docinha. I still can't believe that Ken went back to his hotel room alone the night before. The taxi passes a long, open-ended stadium that has a street running through it. The Samb6dromo. Alongside it are colossal floats ready for the evening's parade. The taxi descends a ramp, circles and halts. We step out beneath the overpass and stare at shacks nailed together from scrap wood. Electricity has been filched to feed tiny televisions, and water has been diverted from underground pipes to fill washtubs where flabbybreasted black women beat the dirt from clothes. Barefoot, rust colored boys are playing with homemade bows and arrows amid the squalor. One of them sees the blond foreigner, aims straight for him and, smiling, pulls back the arrow. The other boys laugh. Ken does not even notice. He walks with us at a steep angle up the mountainside on a brick street. Soon we arrive at a small bodega where men are drinking beer, pounding drums, and singing samba. Ken smiles when he sees Valmir, who last night guided him safely back to his hotel— insisting even on paying for the taxi. It amazes him how after only a few hours he can have complete faith in people he doesn't know in a city that has become synonymous with danger. This is what few outsiders understand about Rio. From afar, they hear the news reports about businessmen being kidnapped and the arrastaes and the mountaintop slums ruled by drug lords, which police dare not enter, and the local businessmen paying off policemen to kill the street kids who rob their customers with knives fashioned from crushed soda cans. But ask the people who live in Rio if they'd live anywhere else and most look at you as if you are crazy. A brute man with a thickly whiskered bowling ball head immediately begins pouring beer. His name is Toco. Like a tour guide, he extols the view of the 120-foot statue of Christ that Ken visited on a package tour two days earlier. Ken is suddenly glad he is no longer on that air conditioned bus, that he's drinking beer in the heat of the real Rio, that he has taken the risk. We have attracted a curious crowd, which trails us up to the street and into a neat apartment. Near its front door is a small sculpture of a black hand with the thumb squeezed between the second and third fingers—a symbol of enduring hard times. But this -week hard times do not
exist. Some of the poorest people in the city devote a quarter of their annual earnings to Carnaval. And the residents of this hilltop, called Santo Cristo, have made sure that every cooler is filled with beer and every grill is covered with meat. Questions come at the chemist as quickly as do fresh bottles of beer. Do people like to play soccer in America? Volleyball? What are the women like? I translate Ken's noncommittal responses over the samba booming from the stereo. It doesn't take long for the natives to size Ken up. "If we were playing a soccer game of books," Toco tells me, "he would beat me 10 to 0. If we were playing a soccer game of life, I would beat him 11 to 0." Yes, it's clear—Toco nods along with me—the Americano needs to get laid. Just then, three women enter the bodega. One, with coal black hair and flaming eyes, has come from the state of Espirito Santo to see the sailor Reinaldo, who lives on the hill. But Ken doesn't really notice her—or the smaller, rounder friend on her right. He's hypnotized by the tall one, the song inspirer, Madalena. "She...is...rny...dream," Ken says through the beer haze." If I could...if there is any way...if..." "Relax," I say, patting Ken's knee. "I'll be right back." "Yes, I guess you could say she is free," the sailor Reinaldo tells me. But he adds apologetically that Madalena's boyfriend is expected to arrive the following night." Maybe a foreigner like you who speaks the language. But Ken? How can he communicate? I don't think he has a chance." His face brightens." But the shorter one doesn't have a boyfriend. Who knows?" I walk back to Ken and explain. Ken glances at the shorter girl, at her blunt hair, pretty face, and ample breasts. "What if she doesn't like me?" Ken whispers. "I don't want to be a thorn in her side." "Ken says it would be wonderful to be at the side of a beautiful woman during Carnaval," I say in Portuguese, beginning the introductions with a flourish, "for he has been working sixteen hours a day in a laboratory and is about to return to his lonely studies to become a doctor." Anna Luiza shyly looks him over. Ken is rocking back and forth to the music with a nervousness that she's never seen in a Brazilian man. I translate questions and answers. When she lists her favorite American pop singers, Ken signals an OK by forming a circle with his index finger and thumb. I smack my forehead. No, winning this bet is not going to be as easy as I thought. "You just told her to fuck herself," I say. But everybody laughs at the gesture's double meaning, and I show Ken how to say "OK" by lifting his thumb straight up. Under the circumstances, all is going splendid, this laughter and small talk
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
about music and America and a small fry Brazilian politician who explained the $51 million in his bank accounts by saying that God helped him win more than 200 lotteries. But suddenly, just as the group is heading out the door to the street party next to the Samb6dromo, Docinha explodes at me. "That's right!" she hisses. "Go with the whores!" "What?" "A fair bet is one thing! But what do you know about decency? Corrupting him like that! That little one will take him for everything he has! Everybody sees it!" I try to calm Docinha, then turn to see Ken disappearing with the others down the steep brick street. I am so preoccupied with fending off my wife's anger that I don't quite take in the gossip coming up the hill about what has just occurred at the street party near the Sambodromo. Some say it is an arrastdo Others say it was a war between rival gangs. After a while, it filters through: there is blood on a street Ken is walking toward. start down the hill. Toco stops me. "You can't go alone. Relax. Ken's with Reinaldo. Reinaldo will take care of him as if he were a brother." I squint down the mountainside, along the overpass, toward the Samb6dromo, but cannot find Ken in the darkness. Coming down off the mountain, Ken, Anna Luiza, Reinaldo, and some of the others head for the biggest block party in the world. Tens of thousands of revelers of every shape and tint swarm around stalls where vendors ladle caldo de mocoto— cow' s hoof soup—to keep the sexual batteries charged. Samba and laughter mix with the scent of cane alcohol and grilled meat. Anna Luiza looks at Ken. Now they're just two timid people whose translator has vanished. She reaches for his hand, and they start to dance. Sweat pops out of his face, and his legs don't know what to do. But embarrassment is not possible during Carnaval. At that very moment, in fact, the president of the country is in a box overlooking the Sambodromo with his arm around a Brazilian Playboy model who's dancing with her hands over her head, wearing only a shirt that leaves the full thicket of her crotch exposed not only to the photographers beneath her but also, consequently, to newspaper and magazine readers around the world. "Scandal?" the president will ask in bewilderment the next day. "What scandal?" The dance draws Ken and Anna
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
Luiza closer and closer until Ken can no longer feel himself. Their lips graze and then lock in a kiss that Ken refuses to let end. Hours later, at nearly three in the morning, when Toco, the giant Valmir, my wife and I find them at the heart of the celebration, the two are still entwined. "God, I'm glad you're all OK," I say to Reinaldo the sailor. "We heard about an arrastdo." "No problem at all," Reinaldo says, pointing to Anna Luiza and Ken." It was finished by the time we got here. This is Rio. Comes with the party. Just because someone gets AIDS, that doesn't mean the rest of us stop making love." I glance at Ken and Anna Luiza and manage a smile. After all is said and done, at least there's this: the geek and the girl in a torrid embrace. So you're set, then?" I say to Ken. "I've got to get my wife back to the hotel." "What should I do?" "What should you do?" I look toward the mountaintop for divine intervention. "Come back in the cab with us and take her to your hotel." All eyes—Ken's, mine, and Docinha's—turn toward Anna Luiza. "Well I say, after translating the proposal. Anna luiza's lips purse. Her eyes blink. "Have him call me tomorrow," she finally says. "Tomorrow?" says Ken. "Tomorrow?" I say. "Or maybe the day after," says my wife. Day Five. Ninety-two degrees. I pace the brick street on the mountainside under the heavy sun. I'm in a sweat. I'm in a whirl. Anna Luiza waiting at home for the phone call to arrange the liaison with Ken. The sailor Reinaldo pulling me off to one side, begging me not to call Anna Luiza because if Anna Luiza comes that evening to the samba parade, she'll bring her friend Soraya, to whom he'd made love the night before, which will ruin his chances with Eliza, whom he has lined up to make love to tonight. "You can't do this to me," he cries. "I'm counting on you." Ken pulling me off to the
HOW TO SAMBA (MEN'S VERSION) Find yourself a street corner. Practice just standing there. You should feel loose, but pleasantly expectant. Check how much time elapses before you feel the need to look at your watch. When you can complete a two to three hour stint without having to know the time, you are ready to start practice. I. The first thing is attitude. You should look and feel relaxed, yet vigilant, playful, and ready to pounce., A slouching posture is easiest, but some crack sarnbistas manage a straight backed nonchalance that is highly prized. Practice both and decide which suits you. 2. Pt the music on. Listen to the beat. It is the road you will walk on, but whatever flow develops in your movements will come from the little plinking guitar or lbanjo pegging away just behind the singer. Your task is to follow the drums with your feet and spell out their rhythm by flinging your legs as far away as possible from your torso on every beat. Master this, then practice the same movement with your torso casually thrown back at a 45-degree tilt. 3. As your legs cut circles in the air with your torso platted back away from them, it is critical that your head remain level, as if you were dancing wedged under a shelf. Hopping up and down is tasteless Also, don't fall down. 4. If you have mastered cakewalking in place, swinging your legs under and over each other as if your were climbing an invisible spiral staircase, and pulling up to a sharp halt after sliding sideways very fast with your feet, you are ready to time your performances. Timing is the difference between dancing to devastating effect and looking like a fool. 5. Remain in your street corner mode until a woman approaches. Let her walk by. Let a few more women pass. Remember, you're not desperate. 6. Wait until a woman you really like comes along, and let her go just past the point where she can see you out of the corner of her eye. Break into samba. If your energy is strong, she will perceive your moVement with her back and turn around. Stop. Smile. (Not at her!) Tug your clothes sharply into place. Wait for another woman. Repeat many times. With luck, a woman will eventually walk by who turns yourspinal column to jelly and sets your ears on fire. She will stop and look at you and smile and avert her eyes and look at you again and start to walk away and turn and grin and throw caution to the wind and break into samba and you'll move right up and dance a couple of circles around her and shrug up behind her real slow and catch her by the hips and circle her down to the floor and spatter a starstorrn of steps around her feet and grab her and carry , her home and ride her and catch her screams in your ears and lie back and breathe easy and watchl her wash up and sing and cook and ask you for a cigarette and give you the eye. If none of this happens, you can always form a circle with the other men and really dance. Alma Guillermoprieto, Samba
57
other side, bewildered that he can't call Anna Luiza. "She's going to think I stood her up. There's no time to explain later. I'm going to be leaving soon." Docinha pulling me off to yet another side. "You can't call Anna Luiza. That will ruin everything for Reinaldo. Remember, he's your host." I snap. "Now you're the voice of integrity," I say, turning on my wife. "Now you start standing up for the rights of a cheating male." Docinha shrugs. I turn to Ken and say weakly, "Maybe you'll meet somebody else. It's complicated...." Time is running out, yet passing so slowly as we travel across the city to pick up the costumes and then return to the apartment. Our silence overwhelms the samba blaring in the distance. I bite my lower lip as I pull over my legs the shiny lime-green pants with lavender tassels that rain from knee to toe. I exhale heavily as I reach for the doublestreaming decker-blue-and-gold Shriner's fez. Over a heart that feels hollow, Ken puts a red white and yellow court jester's chest piece with tuttifrutti lollipops on each shoulder. Then comes a miracle. Anna Luiza walks through the door. Reinaldo slaps me on the back, telling me how he'd felt guilty— a true miracle, a pang of guilt from a Brazilian male!—called Soraya and asked Anna Luiza to join them. I become giddy watching Anna Luiza stroke Ken's cheek while Ken poses for photos costumed like a candied peacock. Even Docinha, perhaps feeling a little remorse for her rash judgment of Anna Luiza, is translating for them. Yes, anyone could sense the chemistry between the geek and the girl. Beers are poured. Plans are laid. After midnight, we will head down the mountain, cross the raised highway to the Samb6dromo and dance with our group. Anna Luiza says she'll stay behind on the mountainside, watch the parade on television and then wait for Ken to return. Ken drinks and drinks some more, then pauses, a chemist about to announce a groundbreaking discovery. "You know something? Beer tastes great!" Ken, Docinha, and I descend the hill with Toco, Valmir, and a few others from the neighborhood for protection. Our eyes fill with a kaleidoscope of fireworks, our ears with a primal drumbeat. The road leading into the Sambadromo is a mash ofspangles and plumes. Docinha, Ken, and I weave through the confusion ofthousands of bodies to find our preordained places in the parade. "This dwarfs the Rose Bowl," Ken says, gaping. "Hey, don't lose me. If
58
you do, I'll end up dying in Rio de Janeiro with lollipops on my shoulders." Samba pours over us. Floats power forward. The stadium becomes a roiling sea of color. Our sense of time is shattered. The 90-minute reel through the Sambodromo is over in a finger snap. It is four in the morning. Toco, Valmir, and a few of the others rejoin us at the exit, and, stepping over puddles, trash, and sleeping vendors, we all head for the street party alongside the Sambodromo to drink amid the other dancers. Docinha nudges me, a glint in her eyes. And nods at Ken's sagging eyelids. "Don't count your chickens." I look futilely for a vendor selling ca/do de mocoto, then grab Ken and declare: "I m taking him to Anna Luiza." Toco steps between us, peers at the distant lights on the mountainside and says, "Alone? Too dangerous. Wait for the rest of us." An hour passes. Dawn of Day Six is approaching when we finally head for the long, raised highway that leads to the mountainside. Ken wonders if Anna Luiza is still waiting for him. I wonder whether Ken still has the strength if she is. Our group lazily drifts in twos and threes through thinning streets. The raised highway is nearly empty but for some teens scattered along the edges. "I'll catch up with you," Toco calls. He walks toward a dark, vacant place to relieve himself. I feel a shiver up the back of my neck. I glance around, see a human wall forming behind me. Toco, I know, is somewhere under the viaduct. But why can't I see Valmir and Reinaldo? You're imagining things, I tell myself They are just going to pass us. But the flicker in my wife's eyes tells me she is aware too. Taco zips his pants closed, climbs the ramp and sees two columns of teenage boys one of either side of the highway— closing ranks behind his pale, costumed guests. Arrast'do. One of the teens walking well behind the wall says to another with a grin, "Lost Germans." There is a security guard at the end of the overpass, nearly a kilometer ahead. But what can one guard do against thirty? Toco slides a camera inside his shirt, holding it so that it bulges like a gun and begins to run toward his friends. He alerts Valmir, who'd also stopped, and the two get between the hunters and the hunted. "You're not going to do anything to them," Toco shouts. A lanky teen in the center of the human wall eyes the bulge in Toco's
shirt." What are you talking about?" An argument sparks, then rages back and forth. "Walk as fast as you can without running," I say to Ken. It is the last thing I will remember before I feel arms all around me, my wife's arms. We have passed the security guard on the other side of the overpass. Toco and Valmir are quickly backing toward them. Having lost its momentum to the argument and the bulge in Toco's shirt, the human wall has broken into pieces, which spill to the edges of the highway. Anna Luiza awakens to hear the story told over and over in Toco's living room. "They were all so nicely dressed. It was hard to believe...." "If I hadn't been holding that camera, you might not be here right now...." "After all that dancing, I had no legs to run...." "Look at the lollipops on Ken's costume. Even they wilted from fear...." "Valmir, I turned around and saw you in front of them. You never looked so small in your life ...." "I would have fought to the end...." Each retelling somehow wrings out a little more of the threat. In a short time, everyone is smiling and laughing and conjuring the next evening's party. Casually crammed among all the others lying on the floor, Ken holds Anna Luiza's hand as if he'd lived on this mountain in Rio de Janeiro all of his days. So my child will not be beaten up in a Junior high schoolyard on account of a name given to him by his mother. And I will have the chance to return to Rio, alone. For during Carnaval in which more than 50,000 people flaunted their flesh and danced their fantasies in a twoday parade that cost more than $20 million to throw; during a Carnaval in which crowds howled at men dressed garishly in drag as they directed traffic on Copacabana Beach, near pharmacies sold out of aphrodisiacs, across from newsstands where scandal sheets of sexual acts committed at the balls appeared next to the nation's most prominent newspapers; during a Carnaval in which approximately 1,150 people were reported assaulted and 64 were reported killed and several million acts of love were consummated, while 25,000 churchgoers huddled in a stadium to pray for the city's salvation, during Carnaval 1994, the sun rose softly one morning as a naïve, blond-haired foreigner walked palm in palm with a sweet Brazilian woman down a mountainside into the heart of the loveliest city in the world. Excerpted from Brazil, collected and edited by Annette Haddad and Scott Doggett, Travelers Tales, Inc., San Francisco California
BRAZZIL - OCTOBER 1997
Speak Portuguese like a Diplomat!
What sort of people need to learn a foreign language as quickly and effectively as possible? Foreign Service personnel, that's who. Members of the United States diplomatic corps are assigned to embassies abroad, where they must be able to converse fluently in every situation. Now you can learn to speak Brazilian Portuguese just as these diplomatic personnel do—with the Foreign Service Institute's Programmatic Portuguese Course. Tens of thousands of dollars were spent by the United States government in developing this course. It's by far the most effective way to learn Portuguese at your own convenience and at your own pace. The Programmatic Portuguese Course consists of a series of tape cassettes and an accompanying textbook. You simply follow the spoken and written instructions, listening and repeating. By the end of the course, you'll find yourself learning and speaking entirely in Portuguese! This course turns your cassette player into a "teaching machine." With its unique "programmatic" learning method, you set your own pace— testing yourself, correcting errors, reinforcing accurate responses. This Programmatic Course comes in two volumes, each shipped in a handsome library binder. Order either or save 10% by ordering both: 0 Basic Portuguese Vol. 1. 16 cassettes (19 hr.), 783-page text, $215. 0 Intermediate Portuguese Vol. 2. 18 cassettes (16 hr.), 618-page text, $245. (CT residents add sales tax.)
BUDICIIPCIRUM® THE LANGUAGE SOURCE Suite P706, 96 Broad St., Guilford, CT 06437 (203) 453-9794 • Fax (203) 453-9774
The Foreign Service Institute's Portuguese course is unconditionally guaranteed. Try it for three weeks. If you're not convinced it's the fastest, easiest, most painless way to learn Portuguese, return it and we'll refund every penny you paid. Order today! Our 56-page Whole World Language Catalog offers courses in 96 languages. Call or write for your free copy. Our 25th year.
To order by phone, please call toll-free 1-800-243-1234 Or fill out coupon below and send to: I.
I I
auDI•caMJm®
Suite P706, 96 Broad Street, Guilford, CT 06437 Yes! I want to speak Portuguese like a diplomat. Rush me the course volumes I've checked below. 0 Vol. I: Basic 0 Vol. II: Intermediate (CT residents add sales tax.) I understand that if I'm not completely satisfied, I may return the course materials within three weeks and receive a full refund. Name Address City
Apt.# State
Zip
Method of Payment: 1:1 Enclosed is my check or money order, for $ O Charge to my credit card: 0 VISA 0 MasterCard o AmEx 0 Diners Club 0 Carte Blanche 0 Discover Card Card It Signature
Exp. Date UI