the camera returns!

I got my camera back, and it works! The powers of modern technology are amazing!

I mentioned there was another sushi sitar event. Here are some pictures! Exclamation point!
Left side: Sitar dude, Luis. Right side: Ricardo, Diego (a friend from our Artes do Corpo class), Brandon, Ingrid's head.

Diego, Brandon, Ingrid:


More blurry pictures of sitar playing:


Brandon is the prettiest girl at the ball, as always:


Here's Claus and Paulo being ridiculous in the Pão de Açucar cafe that I mentioned we often haunt:


Here's Paulo and Claus being ridiculous in a slightly different setting. I have a lot of these shots.

That was from when we went to the Lasar Segall museum to see the opening of an exhibit on a Brazilian illustrator and caricaturist. It was fun and we got to see some of Segall's workshop, which is now being used as an engraving workshop. It's absolutely gorgeous. I would love a space like that. Actually, the entire house/museum is gorgeous. I would like to be Lasar Segall. Except not dead.

It's getting into midterm season here, which is depressing when all my American friends are talking about finals and what they're doing for summer break. I had a Portuguese exam on Thursday, which was kind of silly because we haven't learned anything and the things we did go over in class didn't show up on the test. I did have to write a poem using the words “cristal” and “flor” (and I should hope you can figure out what those mean. I am not translating). What. On Tuesday I'll have an in-class pseudo group exam on poetry. I also have papers due for two classes in the next couple weeks. I'm understanding my classes better and better as time goes on. Except Artes do Corpo, but there's really no saving that one. It isn't meant to be understood. It's fun, though, in a bemusing sort of way.

I am also making new friends, and by that I mean stealing Claus's. On Wednesday Claus and I went to a really pretty bar called Geni (from a song by Chico Buarque, I guess) and met some of his friends and a small legion of their friends. Once it started getting late, Claus abandoned me, and I spent the night with Milena and her roommates Flavia and Raquel. They share an apartment. They're the second group of people my age that I've met in Brazil who don't live with their parents. The apartment didn't look much different than any of mine or my American friends', to be honest. It had a lot of mismatched furniture and things that obviously got handed down from family members. The walls were mostly bare, which was weird. Not a single stolen street sign or beer poster.

Last night I hung out with Claus and Nathalia. Nathalia is a friend of Paulo's who I stole and claimed as my own. Most people call her Tokuda, and they yell it like a battle cry. Paulo wasn't there because he is a big mean jerk who abandoned me (are you noticing a pattern here?) to spend the weekend in Rio. His brother is getting married or something silly like that. Lame excuse, Paulo. Anyway, this is us fucking around in the Metro. I think you've seen enough pictures of me and Claus to figure out which ones we are, and you can pick out Tokuda by process of elimination.



And this is me trying to take a shot of the Metro station through the train doors while they were in the middle of closing:


This weekend is another holiday. I was talking to Paulo recently about the things that really make me feel like a foreigner. Most of the time I feel comfortable enough to not really think about it too much. I've gotten better at Portuguese and although it's still pretty damn obvious I'm not a native speaker, a lot of people have said they thought I might be from somewhere else in Latin America. I also get people who immediately start speaking English when they hear two words out of my mouth, so I don't know what to believe. But I feel pretty ok until one of two things happen. The first is when we're out somewhere and a song comes on that everyone but me knows. I know the words to a handful of songs, but no one ever plays one of the five I know. It really makes me realize again that I'm a stranger in a different culture. Claus and Paulo are close friends, but we didn't grow up with the same things, and there's a big gap in basic little trivia like this. Second is when there's a holiday and no one tells me until like, the day before. For example, this weekend. I talked to Elizabeth about this the last time it happened, actually. She said it was the same in Japan, and she actually got up and went to school a couple times because no one told her. It really is discombobulating.

Tonight Celso's band has another show. I think I've mentioned them before; they play a lot of weird 90's American music and classic rock. They've played the same set every time I've been to see them, but I'll go anyway. Their bassist is pretty good. Last time I spent the concert staring at him and wondering why on earth I stopped practicing. I don't have a good answer. I keep telling myself to pick that up again when I get back, but we'll have to see if I can talk my brother into giving me my bass back. He can keep the guitar. Guitars are for losers.

pictureless

No pictures today. I left my camera in Claus's car. Instead of posting pictures and snappy little comments, I think today I'm going to try to give a better impression of what life is like here, who I spend my time with and what I do. It'll be a different type of illustration.

Sometime last week Claus turned to me and said that he thinks I'm having more fun than the rest of the CIEE students. One of my favorite things about Claus is the way he speaks. He makes a lot of grand, sweeping statements, really solemn stuff about Life and Love and How Things Are. He always sounds very authoritative, as if he's spent the three years he's got on me exploring every facet of human behavior, and when he speaks it's not what he thinks, it's what he knows. He's solemn when he makes his proclamations, but when I call him on things I find particularly ridiculous, he always cracks a grin, admits I could be right, and refuses to be embarrassed at all. It's all very endearing, easy to get swept up in. He lectures me a lot; about language, culture, how I can't constantly be trying to take on all the world's problems, and how I should stop giving my heart freely to people who don't know what to do with it. These are arguments I know better than my own name by now. I usually slip into “grin, try to look serious, and nod” mode, which is what I do whenever someone I care very much about and means very well tries to give me advice I have no intentions of ever following. Dad should know exactly what I'm talking about here, because he's who I trained on to perfect my method.

I said yes, I do think I'm having more fun. When the other CIEE students talk about their time here, it sounds like they're doing more with other Americans than with Brazilians. I also find it hard to believe that anyone could have found better friends than Paulo and Claus. Of course, I don't really talk to any of the Americans about anything important (except for Brandon), so who knows? But I do feel like I'm having an awfully good time, and it does seem to be pretty different than the others, so I said yeah, I think so. I have you two. I don't know if anyone else has made connections like this.

I've written previously about how different the rules are for physical contact are, and how much difficulty I had adjusting to them. I think Brazilian culture in general is warmer or something, because Paulo and Claus also tell me pretty frequently how much they like me. Paulo is easily one of the most affectionate people I've ever met. I was a little weirded out by it at first, but after watching him with some of his other friends, I'm actually pretty envious. Everyone who knows him absolutely loves him, and I think that's in part because he makes it so obvious he's happy to be with you. In the few stolen seconds when he's not drawing, he's probably hugging someone. He's told me a couple times that he cares a lot about me and will miss me a lot when I leave. I always tell him that I'll be back, but every time it's more obvious how much I'll miss him in the time between. Claus does it, too. He gives me a lot of rides home, and after each one we kiss each other on the cheek and he thanks me for my company. He always appears to be genuine. I laugh and tell him it's no problem, give him a little wave, and hop up the stairs to my building. I'm jolted off-kilter every time, but every day it seems more and more natural. Soon I'll figure out something to say back instead of an awkward giggle. It's not that this kind of thing is frowned on or unusual in the US, exactly, it's just that. Well. It is unusual. I adore Erin and I have a good time with her whenever we hang out, but I don't look her in the eye and tell her I love her. I do, obviously. But that's not something we tell our friends. I mean those specific words and the sentiment in general. I mean, we're friends. It should be pretty apparent. She should already know. I'm flustered by it, but I think I like the Brazilian way better. Of course, it might not be Brazil. It might just be Paulo and Claus being Paulo and Claus. They have a tendency to do that.

Claus explained that no, he didn't mean because of him and Paulo specifically, but because of where they take me. He thinks I'm getting a better view of Brazil, a more rounded experience of the culture, a better idea of what it's like to do day to day, Brazilian things. I think that's true, too. We've gone to clubs a couple times, but for the most part, we do normal things. We go to bars and listen to Claus tell us about his theories on relationships, we go to movies, we take walks around the city and go to museums. Last weekend we went to one of Claus's work friend's house in the country and had an authentic Brazilian barbecue. Claus tried to teach me to do tricks with a soccer ball. Paulo spent most of the day conducting things at the grill, slicing and chopping with knives he sharpened (and probably made) himself. Every once in a while he'd call me over and ask for a plate or a bowl or force-feed me a different cut of meat. Paulo has mentioned that he likes having me around because I make him realize how much he likes Brazilian culture. I like being around him because he constantly has something new to show me, even when I've already had a small mountain of meat and beer and can't actually force anything more into my face. Later, he chased the friend's dog around for hours and tried to teach it to swim. At some point, someone tossed the dog an empty Coke bottle. As it fell, Claus or Celso shouted for her to fight against American imperialism, and she attacked it gleefully. I laughed pretty hard at that. Except for the part where I fell with my whole weight on my elbow, it was a wonderful way to spend the day. It was a very laid back. Everyone pretty much just sat around eating and drinking and laughing at the awful voices Claus and his friend Celso make. It was all very normal, and I was really touched to be invited to be part of it, even if it was nothing special to them.

Claus works in PR. This means in theory that he checks for bad press regarding his company's clients. In practice, he spends the first half of the day chatting with me on Google Talk and sending me bizarre YouTube videos. His company is on Rua Angelica close to Paulista, which is about a 15 minute walk from my apartment. Most days I don't have class until after 1, so sometimes I get up a little earlier and walk over to meet him for lunch. On Monday, I met up with him and one of Paulo's friends, Nathalia. Nathalia is tiny, Japanese, and adorable. She studies graphic arts at Paulo's university. Like most of his friends, she is obscenely talented in multiple media. She is also slightly bizarre and generally just a really good time, although she's much more chatty on MSN than off it. Claus and I went shopping with her on Saturday. I had been deadly curious as to where all the counterculture is in São Paulo. She took us to a galleria, which basically amounted to a punk shopping mall. We bought overpriced screen-printed blouses by a local alternative fashion boutique. I felt very chique, but in a really angry, rebel against my parents sort of way. Less Than Jake is going to have a show here on the 29th, so hopefully I can relive my angsty middle school days in style. Anyway, we went to a wonderful orange Indian restaurant and had coffee after. It was all very mundane, but it made me stupidly happy to be included in something mundane. I'm not just the gringa, I'm a gringa that someone wants to have around.

After class I usually stop by White Rabbit, the internet cafe to which CIEE gave us a couple hours a week. Paulo used to work there, and I guess Claus did too, for a couple months. Claus used the opportunity to pick up women, because he's Claus. Paulo's commitment was greater, and, I think, his harvest has been, too. Paulo is generally more quiet and thoughtful. He's very sincere. Paulo's met a couple women through WR, and also half the populatin of Perdizes (the neighborhood that hosts PUC, WR, and Paulo. I live in Higienopolis, which is a 30 minute walk/15 minute bus ride away), Graham, Brandon, and me. He gets free internet. He also uses their back room to teach drawing classes. Paulo's been busier lately. The semester is creeping along, and he recently accepted a position as a TA for a sculpture course. Generally in the past it's been easier to run into him there, which is what I do when I can, because I hate the phone and Brazil facilitates my hatred by making it obscenely expensive to call anyone. When Paulo isn't at WR, I generally assume he's doing something more important, and that if I wait he'll eventually show up.

Paulo is a natural teacher. He talks about earning his Master's, which is the level necessary to teach at universities here. I hope he does. He's been on a mission lately to make me remember at least two tree names. I have one down. He has high hopes for me. We've spent a lot of time sitting on the benches outside PUC. He always tries to get me to eat slightly suspicious things he buys from street vendors. I usually give in. I'm here to learn, and by that I mean I'm here to let Paulo talk me into eating bizarre new things. Recently we've been going to the grocery store a lot. I like to look at the fruits, and Paulo likes to name them for me. The store has beer for Paulo and Claus and juice for me, or sometimes Coke for everyone. There's a little cafe and a seating area outside, where we sit and talk about art. Paulo always carries a black messenger back and almost always pulls out a new book to show me. He draws like a madman, so there's always his sketchbook to flip through, too. It was his birthday yesterday. I bought him a couple more books. He can always use more. I bought The Gunslinger and the first part of Watchmen. I think he'll like The Gunslinger. That should tell you quite a bit about him right there.

These are the people I spend all my time with. Now you know a little bit of them, too.

:(

As I'm sure everyone will be saying, so it goes.

I bought a copy of Slaughterhouse Five for Paulo a couple weeks ago. I said Kurt Vonnegut is one of the greatest living Americans. I meant it. He's part of my culture that I've been incredibly proud to share. When I said it, I knew it wouldn't be true for much longer. Now I guess I can say he was one of the greatest Americans who has ever lived. It's not quite the same, but I do feel pretty cool to have lived some of the same years he did.

I cried for about a day when Douglas Adams died. I am only sniffling a little now, but it's a bigger loss, I think. I'm going to buy Claus a copy of Breakfast of Champions, and even if he doesn't understand America better after reading it, I know he'll understand me. Kurt Vonnegut profoundly influenced who I am and how I think about the world. I'll miss him.

i am jack's update

This time I got four different people to complain about lack of updates! The Whining McWhinerson twins Paulo and Claus, and my parents, who I can't call silly names because they will stop giving me money. I love you, Mom and Dad.

Both future events from last entry did not happen exactly as planned; everyone was too cheap to pay the cover (R$20!) for O'Malley's on St. Patrick's Day, and it rained at the beach. No bikini pictures, sorry. I'll try to work on that. I did end up going to O'Malley's later with Claus, and the place was pretty much an Irish pub. The menus were in English and they had chili cheese fries. I flailed around happily and rolled my eyes while Claus alternately ogled our waitress and claimed that every other woman in the bar was a prostitute there to hit on foreigners. I did in fact drink green beer. I did not take a picture. I think you all can imagine what it looked like. Hint: green.

The weekend before last CIEE took the group to Rio. Paulo had me braced for a dark pit of despair, but while it wasn't my favorite city ever in the history of the world, I don't believe it needs to be nuked into orbit. It was pretty if you like that kind of thing and it smelled bad. The most interesting things were actually the flights there and back. It was about 40 minutes each way. We showed up a couple hours early each time, but the full check-in and security dance only took about 10 minutes. You just went through the line and you were done. No liquids in bags, no checking your shoes, no atmosphere of general suspicion, no giant lines. It was amazingly efficient and stress-free.

On the first day we went on a tour of the historical bits of the city.

This is a giant modernist cathedral. It is beautiful and I would go to church in it every day.







This is one of the most important Baroque churches in Brazil. I am a terrible human being and I can't remember the name. Oops. It was right across the road from the modernist cone. From a conservation point of view, the place is insanity. Rio was obscenely hot and humid while we were there. Paulo told me that most of the sculptures were probably made out of a specific kind of Brazilian wood that has a high mineral content, making it really hard to break down. I can't remember exactly, but I'm sure he will LEAVE A COMMENT with that information, won't he? Anyway, as for the rest, they just keep the light low and try to stop people from rubbing their grubby hands all over everything. As a consequence I couldn't use the flash on my camera, so these pictures are really blurry.






Here's the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library!)





Here is the restaurant where we ate lunch. It was buffet style and stupidly delicious.


This is Megan falling out of her chair in the middle of the classy restaurant:


Then we had a break and went to the beach. I think the city exists only to support tourism along the beaches. For me, that was the problem with Rio. Friends of mine know that I am not really into the beach. I like it, I enjoy the general concept of splashing around and pretending to be a pirate, but I am not a beach person. I am clearly the terror of the seven seas, but it's not a lifestyle or anything. I tan only on accident. I learned to hate the beach in Rio. Our hotel was right on top of the infamous Ipanema. What that goddamn song doesn't tell you is that the waves are really strong and there's a bitch of a current, so if you are an idiot gringa who has seen the ocean all of four times in her life, you should stay the hell out of the water unless heavily supervised. I got thrown around a lot, messed up my nose and did something really painful to my shoulder, after which I decided that the beach could go hang itself.

After the beach we went to see Beth Carvalho sing! I'd heard a couple songs by her before and really liked her voice, so I was super excited. She was promoting her new DVD/CD, a history of Samba, I guess. She sang a lot of classic songs to which everyone (except for the embarrassed Americans) knew the words. I actually knew a couple, which was nice. I even tried to samba a little. Claus showed me how a week or so earlier, and I'd been trying in secret to get my feet to move fast enough. I don't think I was awful, even though Brandon laughed at me a lot. After the concert my arm hurt like hell and I was in the middle of catching a sinus infection, so I went to bed while everyone else went out and got drunk and made out with boys. So it goes.

The next day, Saturday, we did more typical tourist things! First we went to visit the Cristo Redentor, which apparently was a gift from France. France used to be pretty awesome about things like that, I guess. I let Brandon use my camera, so thank him for these.
This is the train we took on the way up the mountain. These guys played a couple songs and tried to get everyone to get up and dance. I samba'd a little again, and Tanya grabbed my ass. I learned my lesson in Rio and will never try to samba in public again.


The city through the clouds:


My favorite picture of Brandon ever:


For Mom and Dad:




Then we went to Pão de Açucar, which is a mountain (two?) and not a grocery store. I was confused for a while, but then suddenly the grocery store's logo made sense.
From the scary hanging contraption on the way up:


I took Brandon to the gun show but he was not impressed.


Me, Brandon, and Angela, one of the Brazilian students who worked with CIEE.


Shot of the other peak:


Shot from the other peak:


Then we ate dinner, watched part of City of Angels (what?) and went to bed. Or at least, I did. WOOO RIO SINUS INFECTION 2007!!! SPRING BREEEAAAAK!!!

On Sunday I returned to wreak vengeance on the beach by glaring warily and refusing to enter water deeper than my ankles. Brandon swam around and if he loves the beach so much why doesn't he just marry it? We got back to São Paulo around 6 or 7, and I went to bed. SPRIIIING BREEEAAAAK! We didn't get to go to the giant rain forest park or the super cool contemporary art museum that looks like a flying saucer, but Brandon and I do plan to go back and hit those up. Maybe then I'll inhale cachaça and make out with boys on the beach, but it's way more likely that I'll go to a barzinho with Brandon to pound on tables and yell about art. That's how I roll, baby.

Incidentally, last week I went to five museums! I visited the Pinacoteca again for class, and also went to two museums on USP campus with Paulo. The Museum of Contemporary Art at USP (or MAC-USP, conveniently enough) has three of Maria Martins' sculptures, but they weren't on display. Anita Malfatti's A boba and Tarsila do Amaral's A negra were, though. I think about 80% of book on Brazilian art have one of the two on the cover. I flailed around happily and Paulo just kind of stared at me. Sometimes Brazilians drive me nuts because they have no idea how awesome this stuff is. I have to wonder if they feel the same about me, but I'm going to have to go ahead and guess not. The US is pretty preoccupied with how great its culture is, although I don't know if that statement applies to me as an individual.

The other two museum-esque spaces I visited are one of the most fascinating things about Brazilian culture. To me, anyway. Two of the biggest banks, Itaú and Banco do Brasil, have buildings called “cultural centers” where they host various art exhibits. That's right. Banks. The Itaú Centro Cultural currently has a show celebrating 20 years of existence. The show is all about contemporary art; this isn't safe, easy Norman Rockwell crap (sorry, Paulo). This is dangerous art, risky art, art that the patrons of the bank might not like. And on top of that, it's one of the best organized exhibits I've ever seen. The rooms are all spectacularly laid out and the art is displayed in interesting ways without being gimmicky. The guards in each room were very knowledgeable, too. I was really impressed. The library is currently closed for renovation (they have a library), but I puttered around on the web version and was, again, impressed. Banco do Brasil had a small collection of pieces by Anish Kapoor, which are equally bizarre and, in an American mindset, possibly damaging to the bank's image if the patrons decide the works are too controversial. I can't get over how weird it was to see museum-quality (or better?) exhibits in a corporate setting, especially after working for the art consultant for half a year. I thought corporate types didn't care about art beyond providing the office with an image, but here apparently they really do care, or at least care enough to hire someone who cares and fund some really fantastic things. I like that. Get on it, USA.

I had an interesting conversation with Paulo and Claus a couple nights ago; we were talking about something, and they asked if I was ashamed to be an American. And I said yes, clearly, of course I am sometimes. I honestly believe that if you're not occasionally ashamed, you're not paying attention. I'd have to be a giant insensitive asshole not to feel a bit embarrassed as an American here. Comparatively, the military dictatorship didn't end that long ago, and there are still clearly consequences of that regime working themselves out. That fiasco was partly my country's fault! Of course I have the grace to be embarrassed by being part of that, no matter how indirectly. I do profit from the US's wealth and status, part of which has been built on constantly fucking over Latin America. I don't like it, I want to work to change the US's conception of Latin America and thus hopefully its foreign policy, but I am still part of it and I do still feel like a neo-imperialist asshole from time to time.

This is honestly the hardest part about being here. There's the basic American identity crisis, but now it's compounded by trying to understand who I am and what that means in an international, and not necessarily positive, context. I don't want to be a great white savior who uses her free time to swoop into favelas to build houses or something. Building houses or something is good work, but there's something kind of condescending about it. I don't pity Brazilians. Honestly, they don't need it. I think they've got a lot of stuff right that we're haven't yet. I don't know how to solve any of Brazil's problems and I'm not sure it would be my place to sweep in and solve them if I could. I do have an idea of how to help stop my country from being such a giant shithead to everyone south of it, which I hope will leave Brazil and the rest of Latin America free to figure things out for themselves without getting screwed every time we decide we don't like the current administration. Maybe I'm exaggerating the negative role of the US in the history of Latin America, but it's hard not to feel like this because I was brought up Catholic and taught to feel guilty about everything. Thanks a lot, Mom. And hey, maybe I can help balance out the idiots who buy commemorative plates encrusted with crying bald eagles and Confederate flags.

In a similar vein, here are some pictures of anti-Bush graffiti around the city. He came for a couple days like...a month ago, and the city got all riled up about it. I don't know if Bush ever actually saw any of the graffiti. From my experience, the graffiti has been very specifically anti-Bush, not necessarily anti-America or anti-me. One of my professors was wearing a pin decorated with Bush with a Hitler 'stache and swastika, but she didn't act any differently toward me. She keeps missing our appointments to go over the poetry we're reading in class, though, so maybe I am the great white Satan. Oh well. You'll have that.
On the wall around my apartment building, I think it says “TO BUSH: THE BOMBS WILL EXPLODED,” I think:

This one is close to PUC, and I like it because he just looks so confused:

I'm a leftist wackjob, but I have to admit this whole episode made me really uncomfortable.

Ok, enough of that. Let's have some more pictures of random things!

This is what I eat, like...every day. Hot dog completo, you are my one true love. I'm not really sure what's all on here, but there are about 12 toppings and one of them is mashed potatoes. I don't know why I like it, either. The green soda is absolutely delicious.


This is a mortadela sandwich. Mortadela is basically baloney, but sliced really thinly. This sandwich is just stupidly big. There is no earthly way for one person to eat a plain meat sandwich the size of their head.


This is where coffee grows! On a tree! In one of the PUC courtyards!


This is a gorgeous photo Paulo took of the sunset behind one of the PUC buildings.


The place from which Paulo took the photo:



Mosaic tables in that courtyard area:


This is Paulo! He got a haircut and shaved! This picture is from a week or so ago and the beard has already grown all the way back in. Claus said he has grass, not hair. I think that might be true.


Claus also shaved, but he hasn't made any more spectacularly bizarre faces since my last post, so no photo for him. This has been your Brazilian facial hair update.