On the Road to Find Out

The Boston Globe’s Big Picture column on its website is a great concept; simply one page of giant photos with no ads or breaks, something that is very rare to find these days. It’s even better too when the Boston Globe are featuring Rio’s drug war which means we get incredible shots like these:

To see the rest of the pictures click HERE.

For those of you who know and love the ‘Marvellous City’, it may come as no surprise that it was recently voted the world’s happiest city in a survey conducted for and published by Forbes.com. Rio has an infectious energy, a buzz that imbues you with a feel-good vibe for weeks after you leave. Music and dancing plays a good part in that but happiness also comes from eating and drinking well, and Rio certainly has no shortages of fantastic eateries and bars that enable you to lead the good life. Discover the best that Rio has to offer and eat, drink and be merry!

Leblon

One of Rio’s more affluent neighbourhoods, Leblon is home to some of Rio’s best restaurants and bars. This area is a foodie’s heaven but if your wallet doesn’t quite match your taste buds, most restaurants offer a lunchtime three-course, pre-fix menu for a fraction of the price that you will be charged at dinner. One of the best, both for the quality of the Italian/Brazilian fusion food and the stunning decor, not to mention the great people-watching potential (the patrons are made up of Rio’s young and beautiful), is Zuka. Either pre- or post-dinner, head on down to the Academia da Cachaça, a Leblon institution which sells 500 types of cachaça, a Brazillian rum made from sugar cane.

Ipanema

The beach is lined with some of the best hotels in Rio de Janeiro and sun-worshippers and surfers flock to Ipanema at the weekend. There are plenty of eating and drinking options on the beach itself but you can’t visit Ipanema without having a drink in Bar Garota de Ipanema. In its previous incarnation as Vellosa Bar, ‘The Girl from Ipanema’ was penned here, hence the reason for its change of name. Once you’ve had a drink or two and hummed along to the classic bossa nova song, indulge in a Brazilian feast at Porcão, a traditional churrascaria where you can eat as much barbecued meat as you can fit in!

Lapa

This district in the Centro neighbourhood houses some architecturally beautiful buildings dating back to the emergence of the republic but it’s when the sun goes down that the area really comes to life, for Lapa is also known for its nightlife. Clubs, bars and restaurants fill with the sounds of samba music but one of the best is surely Café Sacrilégio. Samba, choro, maxixe, waltz and polka beats are all played by the brilliant live band in this cafe housed in a renovated heritage building. Line your stomach and fuel up in preparation for all that dancing at Nova Capela, for some typical Carioca cuisine.

Rio is bursting with excellent places to chow down and drink up, whether you’re after something upmarket at a a Michelin star restaurant in a Rio de Janeiro hotel, or a simple salad and a Caipirinha at a beachfront cafe. Eat like a king, have a few drinks and pull on your dancing shoes to end the perfect Rio night with a spot of salsa.

Very interesting new article on SFMOMA by Darrin Alfred, looking at the Campana brothers, two artists practicising the Brazilian art of transforming waste items into something useful, practical or simply aesthetic, as Darrin explains:

In Brazil, the Portuguese expression gambiarra is applied to the peculiarly inventive approach to problem solving that is ubiquitous throughout São Paulo.

This style of making art is something Vik Muniz, another Brazilian artist, has become famous for. He was the recent subject of Waste Land, a film that was showing as part of the BFI London Film Festival and which I wrote about HERE.

To read the whole article about the Campana brothers by Darrin Alfred go HERE.

Tropicália is a style of music from Brazil, beginning in the late 60s, when a bunch of art students, writers and local musicians, inspired by the work of modern artists such as Helio Oiticica and progressive theatre (especially Oswald de Andrade‘s O Rei da Vela), decided the time was right for a new musical framework. It was a manifesto written by Oswald de Andrade that would have the biggest effect. Manifesto Antropófago (Cannibal Manifesto), published in 1928, states that Brazil is at its best when it is cannibalising other cultures, taking in their music, art and literature and producing something that is, well, better.

This young group, comprising musicians Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Tom Zé, Rogerio Duprat, Os Mutantes (Arnaldo Baptista, Sergio Dias and Rita Lee) and writers Torquato Neto and Capinan, took the manifesto at its word. They mixed popular Brazilian rhythms such as samba and bossa nova (which was an incredibly liberal form at the time) and Northeastern Brazilian rhythms, which is where many of the group were from, with Western pop and rock ‘n’ roll (The Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers‘ was a big influence), concrete poetry and a sense that anything was possible.

This was typified by Os Mutantes, who through their ingenious home-made amps and effects had created a sound that was unlike anything else. Early performances of the music were at talent contest and pop music competitions (very popular in Brazil) where Veloso and Gil would perform, backed by Os Mutantes and other musicians, such as Pepeu Gomes who would later become a key member of Os Novos Baianos.

The movement really became tangible with the release of Tropicalia: Ou Panis et Circencis in 1968, featuring the entire collective. It was a dynamic mixture of great front-men and women, songwriting that played with form and references in a way Brazil had never encountered before, a collective style and philosophy that made it easy for Brazilian youth to make a connection, and music that really followed no rules. In Veloso and Gil there were two musicians with great love for Brazil’s traditional music forms (who were also prepared to play with those forms), the enthusiasm of Os Mutantes and Tom Zé, always capable of mixing the avant garde with pop in song form, but most important of all was the contribution of Rogerio Duprat.

Duprat was a classically trained composer, well-versed in Europe’s avant garde tendencies. His arrangements add a gravitas and identity to the style of music. All of the classic tropicalia albums carry his trademark. As well as Tropicalia: Ou Panis Et Circencis, he wrote arrangements for Caetano Veloso’s first self-titled album in 1968 (informally known as Tropicalia), Gilberto Gil’s first two self-titled albums (known as Frevo Rasgado (1968) and Cérebro Eletrônico (1969)), the first three Os Mutantes albums (Os Mutantes in 1968, Mutantes in 1969 and Divina Comedia Ou Ando Meio Desligado in 1970) and Gal Costa‘s unbelievably good two albums from 1969; Cinema Olympia and Não Identificado – they are by far the most experimental of the lot.

Later Os Mutantes albums, as well as a good Rita Lee solo album Build Up, carried on the style. Jorge Ben even had a very Tropicalia-twinged effort with his eponymously-titled 1969 effort. However, the movement was largely over. Both Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil were asked to leave the country in 1969 by the Brazilian government. They both then spent a number of years in London where they became more aware of folk, rock and reggae music. By the early 70s many of the early collective had dispersed into solo projects, theatre productions and all manner of activities. This, along with the retiring Rogerio Duprat meant that Tropicalia had lost its sound, becoming what is today modern Brazilian pop music, or MPB as it is known in Brazil.

And I think I should leave it there. I only wanted to write an introduction for this video clip, the first part of the BBC’s excellent documentary on Brazilian music; Brasil, Brasil: Tropicalia Revolution. You should be able to find all seven parts in total if you go looking for them on Youtube.

See this post for more information on the tropicalia movement.

I’m currently reading Amazon Watershed by George Monbiot. A truly revelatory book I will talk more about once I’ve finished reading it. Before that though I wanted to share a few paragraphs from it which really illustrate its sheer size:

“In the far north-west of Brazil [there is] a tributary [of the Amazon] called the Rio Tiquié, which is a little longer than the River Thames, but narrower in the lower reaches.

The Tiquié flows into the Uaupés, an unremarkable Amazonian river of around three times the length of the Thames. The Uaupés is itself a tributary of the Rio Negro, a tributary of the Amazon. The Rio Negro is the second largest river in the world, with a discharge slightly greater than that of the Mississippi, or greater than all the rivers of Europe combined. When it reaches the main river, having travelled 2400 kilometres from Colombia, the Negro, impressive as it is, adds only 15 per cent to the Amazon’s volume.

During the wet season as much as one fifth of the world’s freshwater may be flowing through the Amazon. Eight hundred kilometres inland it is as wide as the English Channel. In the river’s mouth there is an island larger than Denmark, or twice the size of New Hampshire; and the river’s discharge is visible 300 kilometres out to sea. The Rio Tiquié, a tributary of a tributary of a tributary of the River Amazon, is called a stream by some of the people living there.”

So, pretty big then!

When you’re hoping for an update on Brazil with a slightly oft-kilter but ultimately prescient nature you can’t really do much worse than David Byrne. Luckily, he has been writing about Brazil on his blog, which I can handily paste in here. He basically highlights the film “Saudade do Futuro” as one to look out for as well as mentions for Caetano Veloso and CéU. The first of these doesn’t really need any introduction, other than to say he still has it, but CéU maybe does. She is still getting bigger and bigger but yet to really break the US or England yet. She played in London for the second time this summer, and has been popping on all kinds of different albums, including new releases by Herbie Hancock and 3namassa. As Mr Byrne says, it really is only a matter of time before she makes it. Here’s what he had to say in full:

Brasil Update

The other day I watched a Brazilian film called Saudade do Futuro, a documentary about Northeastern musicians in São Paulo. This means the poor Northeast in Brasil, not Northeast as in Connecticut. The film is very poetic — there is almost no voice over, and almost no didactic explanations of what we’re seeing — but those techniques are made unnecessary because the style of music — forró, and especially repentismo — tell the stories of the singers’ harsh lives in the lyrics. The latter style consists of rap/rhyming duels, with the singers also playing pandeiros (tambourines with heads, to us northerners). They describe how they had to leave the Northeast — as Luiz Gonzaga did decades ago — and their struggles to survive in the big city. There’s a lot of humor and innuendo in the lyrics as well. Years ago I went to a forró club in SP and it was lovely — great dancing and live music blasting over a horrific PA system.

The filmmakers intersperse the musical scenes with poetic footage of São Paulo — the stock exchange, the street bustle, the commuter trains — that also have a kind of musicality to them. It all fits together in a way that is lovely but inexplicable.

I saw Caetano Veloso’s show here recently at Terminal 5. He’s touring with a band led by guitarist Pedro Sá. The music from his last two records is minimal and raw — rock with a subtext of samba. Lyrics about relationships gone bad, the US base at Guantanamo and drug addicts. Not exactly feel good stuff — but he manages inevitably to make it enjoyable and even beautiful. His pleasure in performing was infectious. It was the best sound mix I’ve ever heard at Terminal 5.

Sunday night I saw Céu, a singer who is one of the exponents of the kind of electronic-roots hybrids now coming out of Brasil. She does a very contemporary kind of music that’s informed by a myriad of historical (mostly Brazilian) styles. The band was, like Caetano’s, minimal — bass, drums, keyboards, and a guy who played samples by using discs as a DJ might… but in this case he played the discs manually, triggering sounds off his laptop. In the last few years she’s gotten hugely popular — well, everywhere except the USA. I expect that might change soon.

There are just somethings that are too good not to publish. So when I read about a fire hurricane I really had no choice but to publish it here on the blog. Have a look at this little beastie:

This happened in Araçatuba in Sao Paulo.

I have no idea how one of these gets going, though a few highly-unreliable sources on the web seem to think that it could be when oil gets trapped in a tornado/hurricane and somehow gets ignited. Although quite how any flame could get anywhere near a hurricane without being blown out is beyond me!

In what’s becoming something of a regular feature I am taking a look at another horrendous murder case in Brazil. This time it is the turn of Bruno Fernandes de Souza (generally shortened to Bruno Souza) who has now been charged for the murder of his new baby’s mother, Eliza Silva Samudio. She had slept with Bruno Souza at an orgy over a year ago. Amongst protestations from Bruno and his family she decided to have the child. Bruno had been married to another woman during this whole episode. Three months after the baby was born Eliza Samudio disappeared and slowly the story has begun to unravel that she was kidnapped by Bruno and his family, including his wife, and taken to their home near Belo Horizonte. Claims are that she was strangled to death, then chopped up and fed to the dogs. Police still have found no trace of the body yet are certain of the circumstances of the case, as noted in AFP’s report of the case.

“Forensic police will prove that Eliza is dead,” the officer in charge of the investigation, Edson Moreira, said. He added that inquiries were continuing to bolster evidence and attempt to find the body. Seven other people, including an ex-policeman suspected of carrying out the premeditated murder on Souza’s orders, have also been charged. Souza’s wife was among them.

This has been one of the most shocking news stories in Brazil for quite a while. Mainly due to the fact that Bruno Souza was a huge public figure thanks to being the number one for Flamengo, a team that won the Brazilian championship as recently as 2009. He had also at times been the captain of the side, one of the most heavily-supported teams in Brazil. It would be the equivalent of Peter Cech or Edwin Van Der Sar getting arrested for murder if it happened in England!

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Uruguay’s Jose Mujica on Friday (30th July) signed cooperation agreements on defence, science, technology, energy, river transportation and fishing with the hope of accelerating political and economic integration between these two neighbouring countries.

The underlying sentiment of the agreement was the call for South America to become a peaceful zone on the whole. This is echoed by this statement by Lula:

“Within the framework of Unasur (Union of South American Nations) we hope to deepen our mutual understanding in order to create a common vision of defense and security for the region, consolidating South America as a zone of peace and democracy.”

They failed to mention any crises that could be causing the lack of peace in the area, although the recent disputes between Colombia and Venezuela were surely on people’s minds. It is felt that the ease of relations between these two countries, especially in border towns such as Rivera and Santana, where people can come and go between the two countries effortlessly, will become a model for other countries in South America to follow.

More info:
Brazil, Uruguay see South America as Peace Zone (Latin American Herald Tribune)

Okay, this is slightly off the beaten track but I just couldn’t believe this story when I first saw it. Wallace Souza, was the presenter of Canal Livre, the normal police chase-style program, which was aired in the Amazonas in Brazil. In 2009 he had to step down from the program over allegations that he had ‘arranged’ for a series of killings in order to improve ratings. The accusations came from the fact that his TV crew was also the first to any murders, often getting there as the police arrived. The final straw came when police saw footage of a drug dealier burning in the woods on the show, with the TV crew there long before the police turned up. He was soon arrested for hiring hitmen to kill five people.

Wallace Souza died on Tuesday (27th July) of liver failure so we will never get to know if he was willing to admit to the offences. We can be sure though that this only adds to the notion that Brazil is one corrupt country. Souza was an ex-police officer who left the force very hastily in 1987. There are no official records why he left but I’m guessing he wasn’t on his best behaviour. He later then turned up as a state deputy in Amazonas in 1998 where he continued until his arrest in 2009 despite a ridiculous amount of allegations for drug trafficking and his additional role as TV presenter. His son is also currently in prison facing charges of homicide, possession of firearms and drug trafficking. Many detectives and ex-police officers have already stepped forward to say that they were contacted by Souza to carry out ‘hits.’

There’s more about Wallace Souza at these sites:
‘Murders for ratings’ Brazil TV host dies in hospital
Murder suspect TV host dies in hospital