THE GOOD BLOOD

Carnival in Rio in the 1950s

2011-10-26T11:36:00.000-04:00

This travelogue by Andre DelaVarre is very cool. We can see that the debauchery was going in full mode in the 1950s! The floats in the samba school parade were primitive compared to what they are today, but they're terribly endearing to look at.

Travel Film Archive - Youtube video of Carnival in Rio, circa 1955

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Os Gêmeos' new show preview

2011-10-18T14:29:00.001-04:00

The graffiti twins attack again, this time in Vila Velha (Brazil) in the Museu Vale, with the show "Fermata."

Here's some images of the show being set.

Preparing Fermata - Gêmeos blog

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Coffee table book on Brazil

2011-09-09T12:02:00.003-04:00

This looks like a good book to browse through for nostalgia or fetish sake!

For the publisher's blurb:

With evocative photography and fast-paced texts by W magazine editor Armand Limnander, Brazilian Style is a curated tour of the most important symbols of modern and traditional Brazil. A fresh and dynamic mix, capturing the culture of one of the most vibrant nations on earth.

Brazilian Style, by Armand Limnander

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Brazilian cops use typography and graphic design in drug raids

2011-09-06T11:46:00.003-04:00

Brazilian cops are so creative! Not sure what the content of Fabio Lopez's talk "Design against crime or how I changed my city with a story of social fiction" was, but this is a cool image of drugs and weapons raids in Brazil, most likely in Rio. We see stuff like that all the time in the media, but seeing the collection all together framed as "design" is a nice clever touch.

The cops generally spell the acronyms of their departments.

Fabio Lopez, "Police Raid Typography"

Cool graphic compares Brazil states GDP to nations

2011-09-06T10:41:00.000-04:00

The Economist made an interesting graphic comparing economic indicators of Brazilian states to nations'. As a whole, results are not very surprising, even though I half expected São Paulo's economy to be bigger than Poland's. And the GDP per person are the most revealing, and should offer a portrait of Brazil that is less bright than the blind middle class want to believe. Rio Grande do Sul GDP per person? Just like that of Gabon.

See bigger graphic and links to similar comparisons with China and India here:
Brazilian equivalents - Which countries match the GDP and population of Brazil's states?

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The Good Blood is back!

2011-09-06T10:30:00.000-04:00

Hi guys,
I'm back to blogging after a somewhat short interruption.
Thanks for reading, as always!

Stop-motion animation with 350,000 post-its

2011-07-26T10:04:00.000-04:00

Wow, nice stop-motion animation by Casa Darwin using 350,000 post-it notes on the facade of the Galeria Melissa, in São Paulo. 25 animators worked for 5 months with the post-it notes filled with 30 thousand love messages from the public. Melissa is a brand of plastic shoes, by the way.

Brazilian scientists to use Twitter to track dengue fever

2011-07-21T12:51:00.000-04:00

According to the New Scientist, Brazilian scientists are going to track dengue fever outbreaks through Twitter:

Short messages posted on Twitter might not seem much, but when the dengue season begins again in Brazil this November, tweets like this could help the country better control outbreaks of a virus that kills hundreds of people each year.

That's thanks to software created by a collaboration between two Brazilian National Institutes of Science and Technology, led by Wagner Meira, a computer scientist at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. The team has used it to identify a high correlation between the time and place where people tweet they have dengue and the official statistics for where the disease appears each season.

Dengue outbreaks occur every year in Brazil, but exactly where varies every season. It can take weeks for medical notifications to be centrally analysed, creating a headache for health authorities planning where to concentrate resources. Using Twitter messages could mean a much faster response, says Meira. "It isn't predicting the future but the present," he says. "This means we aren't weeks behind like we used to be."

Twitter to track dengue fever outbreaks in Brazil

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Gangs of monkeys invade houses to steal food in Rio

2011-07-20T14:22:00.001-04:00

And they're adorable! From TreeHugger:

In Rio de Janeiro, bold bands of marauding monkeys are turning to a life of looting and mischief. By the dozens, young capuchin monkeys have been descending the nearby hills to sneak into homes and steal fruit and other food from unsuspecting residents -- wreaking havoc in the process. "They come in, make a mess, break and throw everything onto the floor," says one distraught resident of Rio's primate-sacked South Zone. But local experts say that kind-hearted humans may be to blame for unleashing this proverbial barrel of monkeys.

Sure, in still-photos and wildlife documentaries, capachin monkey are undeniably adorable and seem rather harmless,but the recent slew of break-ins and thefts have familiarized locals with their more cunning qualities. In fact, an investigation from Jornal Floripa recorded some surprisingly well-orchestrated incidents of looting. By mimicking a birdcall, one monkey alerts countless others hidden that the latest home invasion will soon be underway.

TV Globo covered the story with unfortunate cheesy sound effects and editing:

Marauding Gangs of Monkeys Invade Rio de Janeiro

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João Nogueira sings the autobiographical "Espelho" with translation

2011-07-20T12:03:00.003-04:00

"Espelho" (Mirror) is one of the most beautiful sambas in the Brazilian pop songbook. It's a very sentimental coming of age narrative written by João Nogueira and Paulo César Pinheiro. Nogueira sings his childhood, when he dreamed of being a Air Force pilot or a soccer player, and then how the death of his beloved father made his dreams impossible because he had to quit school. It climaxes right at the end, when he, as a successful adult who thinks that he was able to mirror his Dad's virtues (hence the title), confesses his fears of that mirror breaking apart.

In the video below, Nogueira tells the story of his childhood after a beautiful interpretation of the samba. After the jump (click "read more" below), the lyrics in Portuguese and English.

Espelho

João Nogueira e Paulo César Pinheiro

Nascido no subúrbio nos melhores dias
Com votos da família de vida feliz
Andar e pilotar um pássaro de aço
Sonhava ao fim do dia ao me descer cansaço
Com as fardas mais bonitas desse meu país
O pai de anel no dedo e dedo na viola
Sorria e parecia mesmo ser feliz

Eh, vida boa
Quanto tempo faz
Que felicidade!
E que vontade de tocar viola de verdade
E de fazer canções como as que fez meu pai (Bis)

Num dia de tristeza me faltou o velho
E falta lhe confesso que ainda hoje faz
E me abracei na bola e pensei ser um dia
Um craque da pelota ao me tornar rapaz
Um dia chutei mal e machuquei o dedo
E sem ter mais o velho pra tirar o medo
Foi mais uma vontade que ficou pra trás

Eh, vida à toa
Vai no tempo vai
E eu sem ter maldade
Na inocência de criança de tão pouca idade
Troquei de mal com Deus por me levar meu pai (Bis)

E assim crescendo eu fui me criando sozinho
Aprendendo na rua, na escola e no lar
Um dia eu me tornei o bambambã da esquina
Em toda brincadeira, em briga, em namorar
Até que um dia eu tive que largar o estudo
E trabalhar na rua sustentando tudo
Assim sem perceber eu era adulto já

Eh, vida voa
Vai no tempo, vai
Ai, mas que saudade
Mas eu sei que lá no céu o velho tem vaidade
E orgulho de seu filho ser igual seu pai
Pois me beijaram a boca e me tornei poeta
Mas tão habituado com o adverso
Eu temo se um dia me machuca o verso
E o meu medo maior é o espelho se quebrar (Bis)

The translation is more or less literal and not super careful! Enjoy.

Mirror

João Nogueira and Paulo César Pinheiro

I was born in the suburbs of the old good days
With hopes of a happy family life
Of walking and riding a steel bird
I dreamed at the end of the day, when tired
Of the most beautiful uniforms in my country
My Father with a ring on his finger and the finger on the guitar
Smiled and even seemed to be happy

Oh, good life
So long ago
What bliss!
And that desire to play guitar for real
And to make songs like my father did (repeat)

In a day of sadness I lost the old man
And I confess that I still miss him a lot
And I embraced the ball and thought I'd become
A ball player when I became a man
On a bad day I kicked wrong and hurt my toe
And without the old man to quell my fears
It was one more desire left behind

Oh, useless life
Goes in the stream of time
And I without malice
In the innocence of a child of such young age
I got mad at God for taking my father from me (repeat)

And so growing up I was raising myself
Learning on the street, at school and at home
One day I became the hotshot at the corner
In playing, in fighting, in dating
Until one day I had to quit school
And work to support all
So without ever realizing it I became an adult

Oh, life flies
Goes in the stream of time
Oh, what nostalgia
But I know that in heaven the old man
Is proud of his son who's like his father
Because I was kissed in the mouth and became a poet
But I'm so used to adversity
That I fear one day the verses will hurt me
And my greatest fear is to break the mirror (repeat)

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Livraria da Vila among the most interesting bookstores in the world

2011-07-19T11:22:00.000-04:00

Flavourwire published a list of 10 unconventional bookstores and among them is one of my favourite bookstores ever: Livraria da Vila, in São Paulo, designed by Isay Weinfeld (same guy who designed the Havaianas store).

This impeccably designed bookstore in Sao Paulo looks to be basically made out of books. The front doors are functioning bookshelves and the walls are lined floor to ceiling with books wherever you look, including, um, in holes in the ceiling for extra space. Though this is one of the least conceptually bizarre bookshops on this list, we think the form-follows-function-follows-form design aesthetic is pretty exciting. Plus, you have to admire a bookstore that puts a book every single place they can and still manages to have the place looking shiny and neat.

Check the link for more pics.

Livraria da Vila, an unconventional bookstore

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São Paulo guide of cool stuff

2011-07-11T21:37:00.000-04:00

Cool Hunting has an interesting section on nice spots in São Paulo for shopping, eating/drinking or seeing art.

Our newest installment for the Cool Hunting Local section, the São Paolo guide features ten of the best "jumping-off" points for those visiting the tropical city. Here is a taste of the insider tips we feel will help you prepare for a memorable tour of this colorful and culturally rich destination spot.

Benedito Calixto - For an authentic shopping experience, we recommend the famous artisanal market, Benedito Calixto. While São Paulo is famous for its outdoor markets, or feiras, the Benedito Calixto is among the most popular. Although shopping is the main focus here, socializing comes in close second. Friends catch up over jam-packed aisles of vintage clothing, sunglasses and vinyl, antique tchotchkes, and costume jewelry. Stop by the outdoor food court tents later for a beer or coconut juice to wash down the feira favorite, pastel, a fried pastry stuffed with various fillings, from cheese to ground beef.

Taking advantage of the local young demographic, the organization behind Benedito Calixto hosts cultural programs, ranging from live chorinho music in the food court to capoeira demonstrations in the courtyard of its east side building (no. 112). The surrounding bars and boutiques have flourished as a result of the influx of people. For more shopping, a covered market on the west side of the plaza features indie designers slinging items like purses, dresses and handmade soap made with exotic fruit.

CH Local: São Paulo - Our tips and tricks on where to shop, eat and sleep in Brazil's largest city

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Funny campaign against drunk driving in Brazil

2011-07-07T13:07:00.000-04:00

Would you give your car to a drunken valet? I won't spoil it, just watch this experiment/campaign paid off by a couple of responsible bars in Brazil.

L.O.V.E. Banana, a happy love song for a fruit

2011-07-05T12:03:00.001-04:00

Producer João Brazil invited C.S.S.'s (Cansei de Ser Sexy) Lovefoxxx to colaborate with him in this fun track for the summer!

Banana is one of out favourite fruits!

L.O.V.E. BANANA - JOÃO BRASIL feat. LOVEFOXXX (CSS) from Hardcuore on Vimeo.

See also: 10 Things You didn't Know About Bananas - one of the most popular posts of The Good Blood.

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Brazilian judge gives male couple approval for country’s first gay marriage

2011-06-28T08:42:00.000-04:00

From the AP:

A Brazilian state judge on Monday approved what the court said is the nation’s first gay marriage.

Sao Paulo state Judge Fernando Henrique Pinto ruled two men could convert their civil union into a full marriage. Brazil’s Supreme Court cleared the way in May for the recognition of same-sex civil unions, but stopped short of approving gay marriages.

A court statement said Pinto made the decision based on the top court’s ruling on civil unions and on Brazil’s constitution, which outlines how a civil union can be converted into a legal marriage.

Benjamin Polastri, a spokesman with the Sao Paulo state Attorney General’s Office, said it was not immediately clear if the ruling set a strong national precedent. Polastri also said the just-approved gay marriage was the first for South America’s biggest nation.

Brazilian judge gives male couple approval for what court says is country’s first gay marriage

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Short documentary on hellish prison Carandiru

2011-06-24T09:07:00.001-04:00

Carandiru Prison (São Paulo) was at one point the biggest prison in the world in number of inmates. It was violent and horrible, but also a place full of humanity that inspired the feature film Carandiru, by Hector Babenco, that I highly recommend.

This short documentary by VBS.TV, Carandiru's Bloody Memories, is basically an interview with former warden who not only knows a lot about the prison but also has an interesting collection of video, photos and objects of the prison.

Brazilian man hits wife with poodle, dog dies

2011-06-23T15:34:00.000-04:00

I really have nothing to add to this.

From the CBC:

Police in southern Brazil say a jealous husband hit his wife in the head with a pet poodle.
The man picked up the dog and swung it into his wife's head twice because he suspected she was having an affair, Insp. Thais Norah Sartori Postiglione said in Sao Paulo.

The two-kilogram dog died, and Carla de Camargo Oliveira suffered minor bruises, the inspector said. Postiglione said she cannot release the name of the alleged assailant because he was not arrested. Officers decided the attack was not highly dangerous to the woman and he was not caught in the act.

But police are urging prosecutors to charge him with assault and battery and cruelty to animals, Postiglione said.

Brazilian man hits wife with poodle, dog dies

Brazilians try to set new mass gay wedding record

2011-06-23T09:24:00.001-04:00

From the BBC:

Dozens of gay and lesbian couples have tied the knots under Brazil's new same-sex union laws in a bid to set a new world record for mass gay weddings.

Nearly 50 homosexual couples exchanged vows under Brazil's landmark law in an attempt to break a world record.

Brazil's Federal Supreme Court legally recognized same-sex partnerships in May, in a landmark case for gay rights in a country with the world's largest population of Roman Catholics.

Sorry, can't embed the video, you have to go to the BBC site.

Brazilians try to set new mass gay wedding record
Cidade maravilhosa será palco do primeiro casamento coletivo gay

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Embolada, repente and Google

2011-06-22T12:04:00.002-04:00

Embolada is the rhythm that the street improv music performers from the Brazilian Northeast adopt (Embolada is not always improv, but improv is almost always embolada or coco). Improv music, a very distant and older relative to hip-hop rap battles, is called "repente". It's very fun to watch and very hard to translate. They always work in duos, sometimes improving together, sometimes against each other.

Google was very smart in getting one of the greatest contemporary repente duos in Brazil, Caju & Castanha ("Cashew and Nut") to make a cute commercial in which they rap about how they'll challenge Google search to see who's faster with words, and then pay a little homage to the culture of the Northeast searching for icons of Pernambuco, their state.

Brazilian disco music: As Frenéticas

2011-06-22T11:22:00.000-04:00

They were a girl group that was really big in the 1970s. I still love the songs for the nostalgia element, but I don't know - is it good? In the 1990s they always played this song in clubs in the morning, like the last closing song at 10 or 11 am, which added a new level of melancholia to the whole thing.

The video is incredibly bad, even though they seem to have spent a lot in props etc.

10 best street foods in Brazil

2011-06-13T13:13:00.001-04:00

Brazil has some pretty tasty street food. Not as crazy and varied as, say, Mexico or Taiwan. This makes sort of easy to rank the best street food, as any list like that by anyone would have more or less the same choices. But probably in a different order.

10 – Pamonha

Pamonhas are like tamales, except they’re made out of the corn itself, not out of corn meal. Brazilian corn is very fibrous and not too sweet, so the mashed corn can go into the wrapper and be boiled directly in water. There are sweet and savoury pamonhas. The pamonha vendor occurs in many forms and shapes. She can walk down the street playing a triangle, or drive a car full of pamonhas playing the chant through loudspeakers. The pamonha car drives people crazy, it's so annoying. More about pamonha here.

9 - Espetinho de camarão

Of all the numerous skewers you can get in the street in Brazil, from chicken hearts to succulent beef, from spicy sausage to cheese, the shrimp one in my favourite. Usually sold at the beach, I always have to get one or two, throwing all my health concerns out in the ocean.

8 - Queijo coalho

OK, this is the other kebab I get at the beach. Fresh cheese grilled in front of you. It tastes like it should, so it's not out of this world, but it's there, you're hungry, and you get to chat with the vendor and it's relaxing to see it being made, I guess.

7 - Empadinha

Image by Flicker user charles. c

Every culture in the world has some version of this: a seasoned meat with vegetables packed inside some dough and baked. In Brazil our little pies are empadinhas, and they have the traditional fillings of shrimp or palm hearts or chicken (people experiment a lot with non-traditional fillings). Found mostly at beaches and at the corner bar or bakery. And in my house: my empadinhas are killers.

6 - Tapioca (cuscuz)

A type of tapioca pudding made from tapioca balls (like the ones used for bubble tea, just much smaller and transparent), grated coconut, coconut milk and served with condensed milk on top, it pleases immensely the sweet teeth out there. I'm getting into a sugar coma just by writing about it. It's called tapioca in São Paulo (which causes a considerable amount of confusion with tapioquinha, see below) and cuscuz in Rio (don't get me started with this confusion - there some 78 dishes called cuscuz in Brazil, all very different).

5 - Caldo de cana

Photo by Flicker user kawanet

Sugar cane juice or garapa, freshly squeezed, is also a bomb of sugar. Very pleasant "herbal" taste. Drunk pure or mixed with lime juice or pineapple juice. Found at the feira (farmer's market), a place that equals paradise in my little universe.

4 - Tapioquinha

A delicate crepe made with tapioca starch. It's sort of magical seeing the flower (polvilho), just by itself, with no grease or any other ingredients, turning into this crispy and chewy little crepe just by pan grilling it. My favourite filling is cheese, but coconut and condensed milk is also popular. This is native food, directly from the jungle to the streets and farmer's markets of Brazilian urban centres.

3 - Acarajé

Acarajé is so important in the culture of the state of Bahia that I cannot really make it justice in one paragraph. It's a deep fried ball filled with a wonderful dried shrimp stew called vatapá. The dough is made through a laborious process of mashing black eyed peas. The vendor is always a woman who dresses in a particular way, called "baiana." They're officially considered "national immaterial cultural heritage." The dish is Afro-Brazilian and it has many religious connotations, so much so that some born-again Christian acarajé vendors in Salvador refuse to call their dish "acarajé," calling it instead "Jesus balls." I know.

The video below shows the annual celebration of the baiana do acarajé in Salvador, Bahia.

2 - Tacacá

Another food institution, this time from the North. Tacacá mixes African, Portuguese and Indigenous ingredients in a bowl of happiness. It's a complex mix of manioc juice (the broth itself takes days to prepare), dried shrimp, tapioca starch and a green vegetable called jambu that makes your mouth tingle and literally water due to the presence of the chemical spilanthol.

Image by flicker user Fernando Remedios

It's sold in the streets of cities in Acre, Amazonas, Pará, and Rondônia by the tacacazeira. Tacacá is not only my favourite street food, it's probably my favourite food, period.

1 - Pastel

No one knows for sure the true origins of pastel de feira, but the speculation is that Japanese immigrants invented this when they came to São Paulo over a century ago. It's basically a giant deep-fried dumpling. It's mandatory to have a pastel in the feira (farmer's market) when you go to São Paulo. The typical "barraca de pastel" (pastel stall) is still mainly operated by Japanese-Brazilians. Twenty years ago, there were four or five kinds: cheese, ground beef, shrimp, pizza (cheese, tomato and oregano), and palm hearts, but now you can find something like 20 kinds, including chocolate. The dried cod one is to die for. Wash it down with sugar cane juice.

See when she pokes a hole in the pastel? That's to prevent the eater from having third degree burns with the hot steam.

Honourable mentions: coconut water, açaí.

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Sebastião Salgado photographs the Arctic

2011-06-11T09:30:00.001-04:00

The New York Times Magazine has the cover and a gorgeous spread of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeastern Alaska, photographed by the Brazilian Sebastião Salgado.

I know Ansel Adams’s work, and Edward Curtis’s work, and I’m a big fan. When I started this project, I had never photographed animals or landscapes. But when I began, I saw that there is an identity, a personality in the landscape. There is a way to the trees and the animals. And it was for me a big, big, big change to discover this. When you go back to the work of Adams and Curtis, it seems that they also discovered this. When Curtis made pictures of the American Indians, I think he was doing two things. He was making a cross section of an era that was disappearing. And he was making a gift for them.
When I started the Genesis Project, I had the impression that most of the planet had gone. When I started doing my research, I discovered the incredible diversity of place on this planet. There are a lot of, lot of pristine places on the planet. You have a lot of tropical forests. On most land over 3,000 meters high, there is no development. These places are still like they were.

Another World, Another Planet: Alaska’s North: Slideshow

Interview with Sebastião Salgado

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Interview: Brazilian soap opera first black lead actor

2011-06-10T08:33:00.001-04:00

The Christian Science Monitor interviewed Lázaro Ramos (and other people) for a piece on the first Afro-Brazilian actor to lead the cast of a soap opera in Brazil.

“Of course it's late,” Mr. Ramos says of his casting. But he still welcomes it as an opening for more black actors in Brazilian popular media.

“There's something visible, perceivable, which is this inequality of the country, of television, of being black, of being in theater. This is the reality we live with. But I like to talk about the positive side,” the chipper Ramos says in his break room after filming the hospital scene. Known for his roles in critically acclaimed independent films before becoming a soap opera star, he speaks confidently on the growing “freedom” with which Brazilian society now discusses race.

Brazilian soap operas get their first black lead actor

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Clinic offers free plastic surgery for the needy in Brazil

2011-06-09T13:16:00.001-04:00

In the land of plastic surgery, the star doctor Ivo Pitanguy offers hope to people who can't afford a boob job, among others (and more serious) body improvements.

Clinton and FHC unite in the fight for drug decriminalization

2011-06-09T12:53:00.001-04:00

It's hard to understand why those guys - former American presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso - did absolutely nothing for the decriminalization of drugs while they were in office, when they could actually have effected some change. But I guess late is better than never.

The documentary Breaking the Taboo, by director Fernando Grostein Andrade, is a passionate apology for drug decriminalization. The terrible war on drugs has killed too many innocent people, criminalized the ill and the poor, and benefited no one except the American prison system as an enterprise from hell. It's time to stop.

More about the film at Rio Times

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