Shopping

There's a shopping in my neighborhood. There's a shopping downtown. There's even a brand-new shopping across the street from me. In Brazil shopping signifies mall. It becomes very confusing explaining the verb To Shop or to Go Shoppping when the verb itself is also the place where you go. The shopping is a Brazilian convention. Besides the adequate selection of English-named retail stores, ample top floor parking, there is always a bountiful food court where for some confounding reason people dine and imbibe as if the cafeteria were a chic restaurant. On weekends they surge, during the week they falter. The shoe stores are plentiful with overpriced sneakers that Brazilians lease as a result of their unaffordable prices. The clothing stores such as Beagle, Renner, or my personal favorite, Taco are reasonable and in addition have national comparable versions of Marshalls or Target. The shopping is convienient and evil simultaneously. I can't really talk though because I either cut through its shortcut on the way to work at least once a day, or patron it's hypermarket BIG that is owned by none other than walmart Brazil.

...And I Approve This Message

It's easy to forget sometimes that The US is the only country holding an election this year. However, the constant barrage of advertisements, attacks and condoned messages spewing from all orifices of the American media pales in comparison to the Horário Eleitoral.
Three times a day the television is at bay of the political forces for an hour at a time. There are so many parties it's impossible to keep track, literally thousands. Here in Florianópolis the endless advertisement avalanche of amateur, clumsy, bumbling, foolish ads make me cringe for hours on end. It makes Blair High School SGA elections seem like a prominent political force propagated by powerful lobbying groups.
The candidates voices are monotone, their hand gestures awkward and their pitches uninspired. Each party has a corresponding number, and each candidate within the party has an individual number as well. Candidates find bizarre ways to catch the voters eyes; dressing up like clowns or Santa Claus, or belting out country music melodies. My students have told me that the further you head into the country, the more prevalent the vote buying and unprofessional the electoral process becomes.
Nevertheless, Brazil has had electronic voting nationalized for nearly the past decade, something that our hanging chad fiasco could attest to needed improvement. And curiously, morality issues such as gun-control, abortion, and gay marriage are left far away from the ballot box.
But really as an American who I am to talk? What with the electoral college, primary/general election, two-term elected George W. Bush my students have constant ammunition to stump and confound me. And I thought prepositions were difficult to explain.

United Nations Soccer

Today I amply represented the United States in the United Nations Soccer Forum held in Trindade, Florianópolis Santa Catarina Brazil. Delegates from France, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Argentina were all in attendance. Fortunately no head-butts occurred in heated moments of the match. While I didn't score a goal I did manage to attain a new nickname, Gringoal. I hope it will stick. There were chickens, ducks, geese, and other assorted fowl cheering us on as they were the only fans at the field, which we rented for $70 reais per hour. The artificial turf left pesky remnants of rubber inside of my shoes, and stuck within the fibers of my socks. Thank you Ed Willhelm, I held my own on the pitch.

Gal Costa

This month's artist, Gal Costa, has a tender, floating voice that embodies Brazil. She naturally blends diverse Brazilian genres in a contemporary context in a unforced manner. At times I can even hear Otis Redding belting over the Memphis Stax like grooves of cuts such as Vou Recomeçar.

Gal is originally from Salvador, Bahia like so many of the other musicians I've profiled in the recent months. Her first record was split with Caetano Veloso when she moved to São Paulo. Gal along with Maria Bethânia, were the foremost female leaders of the tropicalismo movement. While Gal had lots of interesting and compelling cover art to represent this month's podcast I skipped over using the most risque of the collection.

Up next month:

Jorge Ben Jor

As Olimpíadas

Despite the fact in the United States we might not give a hoot about the Olympics, we still have expectations. We have expectations to win big. Not just a few scattered events, as if we were Turkmenistan and we had a ringer weightlifter. We expect to win across the board. Let me put it in perspective. Brazilian Olympians won their first individual gold medals in 2008, They were greeted by camera crews and triumphant fans upon their arrival at Garulhos airport in São Paulo. I asked myself, “All this fanfare for winning one measly medal?” If Michael Phelps hadn’t won 8, we would’ve probably taken away his Passport and left him in Beijing.
Let’s face it. We’re a developed country and we have the luxury of lavishly financing a thriving squad. We have contenders in nearly every sport. Not only in the Summer Games, where any impoverished cretin can participate because of the lack of necessity for expensive equipment or training, but also in the winter games, or as I like to call them, the WASP games. (Let’s be honest, Cool Runnings gave us all plenty-o-laugh, but at the end of the day it was really a disguised critique of the evils of capitalism and international wealth distribution.)
It’s weird watching the Olympics in another country. First off it’s not a primetime spectacle like on NBC because that would interfere with the Brazilian soap opera schedule. Therefore the competitions are spread throughout the day in real time. Thus I’ve unfortunately missed all of the synchronized swimming battles which are broadcasted at an ungodly hour. The most popular events are Volleyball, Judo, and logically Soccer. But it certainly makes me homesick. Where is Bob Costa giving me the exclusive sweaty interviews directly from the finish line? Where are my morning medal leader updates given to me by Matt Lauer? And most importantly, Where are my promotional Dream-Team McDonald’s supersized cups?
Michael Phelps is a god here. He’s on the cover of all three of the major magazines, the equivalents of Time, Newsweek and for some reason Penthouse. I’ve been trying to convince people that we are related. That he’s a distant cousin from Baltimore. It’s been working well enough to get girls to talk to me, so I’m happy.
We’re in second place, and it’s not looking like we’re going to catch up. People here are a little frightened of China’s rise to power. Nobody likes the new kid of the block, even the Berenstain Bears can attest to that. (see The Berenstain Bears' New Neighbors in which Papa Bear’s overt racism against the new Panda Bears that move in across the street, divides a family to the limits.) Over the months leading up to the Olympics the media both in the US and Brazil had reiterated China’s pollution, corruption, bizarre cuisine, human rights abuses, and most shockingly of all; the scandal that General Tso was only but a mere lieutenant. You’ve gotta hand it to China though for keeping that 7-year old snaggletoothed gargoyle away from the cameras. I shudder at the thought of her patriotically singing in HD.
So maybe the Olympics are only a bunch of games, but at the same time they represent so much more than the medals. I was certainly relieved to see the US Basketball team trounce Yao Ming and his Chinese cohorts, for some reason it gave me a little bit of reassurance in the American economy. And you better believe Brazilians were indignant to see Argentina pummel Ronaldinho Gaucho and the rest of the Brazilian Soccer squad, despite Brazil’s talent on the pitch. The games are an inspiring time when every four years the world can come together to individually flaunt their geopolitical and economic dominance symbolically through sport.

Caetano Veloso Podgycast August

Sorry for the delay on this podcast, but good things come to those who wait. (In actuality I was attempting a data transfer to my external hard drive and I accidentally erased the entirety of my collection of Brazilian Music that I've been painstakingly downloading over the past 4 months. Shoot!) But heartbreak aside I got the music I needed and put this podcast together especially for you the devoted listening audience.

Caetano Veloso and I go back. The first MPB CD i bought was called Noites do Norte. Caetano like so many other MPB monarchs is from Bahia. His falsetto voice could be attributed to the influence from Portuguese Fado music which he listened to as a youth, however his rock and roll sensibility is due to the American imports he adored so much growing up in the 1950's. Caetano has been called the Bob Dylan of Brazil. Caetano moved to Rio De Janeiro for college where he as luck would have it, won a musical contest. His career started with the bossa-nova influenced album Domingo featuring Gal Costa, another Baiana artist who I will be featuring next month. However, his career took a drastic turn in the late sixties acting as a musical and political firebrand for the Tropicalismo movement which he co-founded with fellow Baiano Gilberto Gil (see last month's podcast.) Because of the psychedelic, internationally influenced, and anti-military dictatorship rhetoric preached by the music, Caetano, Gilberto Gil plus a myriad of other musicians, artists, writers and actors were arrested and jailed.
Consequently Caetano and Gilberto Gil spent the following years in exile living in London, learning English, and unfortunately taking to singing in it. The albums of the period acutely capture the zeitgeist of his loneliness in exile.
Caetano was eventually allowed to return to Brazil and the music immediately succeeding his triumphant return is in my opinion his freshest, most inspired, most visionary, most captivating and most intriguing music of his career. But I'm going to stop because to quote Elvis Costello "writing about music is like dancing about architecture."
Caetano has since enjoyed international recognition, Oscar nods and even won a grammy for his 1997 album Livro.
Note: Brazilian albums are generally self titled albums, regardless of whether it is the artists first album or eighth album. Take a look at wikipedia or allmusic.com if you don't believe me! However Caetano is an exception in this sense due to the fact many of his albums have varying titles.