Update

Regular readers will have noted the lack of postings lately. The faux carioca is reaching the end of her language and culture program so she has been very busy. In the next week she will try to get you caught up on the following:

1. Oral tradition in Brazil and what this means for public transportation.
2. Hillbilly month in Brazil (June).
3. Capoeira as a butch form of dance.
4. Her fresh-juice-a-day mission.
   

For now she will offer the following updates:

• The ankle is on the mend, but the faux carioca is still gimping around. A few days with absolutely no walking--being carried on a litter would be appropriate--would expedite her recovery, but this simply cannot be accomplished.
• Research at the Carmen Miranda Museum has been going well, but won't be complete by the time she returns to the U.S. (Has the faux carioca told you lately how incredibly helpful the museum staff are?) Interviews are on the horizon for sometime between July 1 and July 15.
• The movie "Control" has beautiful cinematography.
• Oddly enough, drag shows in Rio seem to start on time. This was bad news that the faux carioca recently received when she was functioning on Brazilian time and had planned to catch a show of impersonators singing songs from various divas including, she had hoped, Carmen Miranda.
  
• Of the 10 students in her program, the faux carioca and one other person (the guy she kicked in the head--the faux carioca's magic is contagious!) are the only people who have not been robbed, had a knife held to their throat, identity stolen, etc.
• Last week was Fashion Week in São Paulo and bloomers made their appearance again. The pendulum of fashion has a tendency to swing from one extreme to the other. The thong, Brazilian freaks and the faux carioca agree, is better left in the bedroom. The faux carioca wouldn't dream of denying anyone the right to sport a filo de dental (dental floss), but she must confess that she is a bloomer radical for all occasions. Sexy and comfortable!

Tchau gente!

Letter from Brazil to Barack Obama

Dear Barack Obama,
Though your hands be as soft as a baby's bottom from many years of laboring with the mind, the honeymoon is over. The faux carioca still loves your sparkling eyes and admires your optimism, but she's disappointed with your position on corn-based ethanol. Who doesn't want to help out the Midwestern farmer? How could we deny assistance to friendly folks who get their kicks from building sculptures out of butter at the state fair? The rub, golden boy, is that these same nice people are growing a food staple that provides a good portion of the world's diet. Fine. Subsidize the growth of these crops. But does it really make sense to give farmers support to turn that same food staple into fuel that will feed the American gas guzzler?

You have also proposed maintaining the tariffs on Brazilian sugar cane ethanol. The energy ratio of sugar cane ethanol to corn is 8 to 1. The math here is simple. Moreover, unless you're Chrystal F. (and there can be only one Chrystal), sugar cane is not essential to anyone's diet.

We need to find other solutions to the high cost of fuel. At the risk of sounding like an idealist, the faux carioca suggests that in addition to the use of more energy efficient sugar cane ethanol, we consider alternatives to the car. Why not provide subsidies for increased bus service, for example? Or perhaps provide municipal bicycles as the Parisians have done?

Stay in touch and please try to do the right thing,
Faux Carioca

Photos from Daspu

The woman with no shirt is a well-known "actress" in Brazil who appeared in the fashion show. There was a top that completed the ensemble, but she decided to remove it and feature the shorts instead. The demure dress on the right is from an official Fashion Rio event.

Daspu

CONTINUED FROM THE PREVIOUS ENTRY ("NIGHTLIFE").

When the faux carioca arrived at the apartment building of her new friend, the real carioca met her in the lobby equipped with two large rolls of tape. They descended into the parking garage where the friend settled on the shabbier of her two cars and began to alter a '6' into a '0' on her license plate. Although the faux carioca did not understand the explanation for this handiwork, she decided to trust her more experienced companion's judgment.

Traffic was not as bad as they had anticipated and they arrived at the samba school just before the scheduled start time of 8:00. Of course, the only thing to start on time in Brazil is quitting time at work. So for the next hour and a half they chatted and looked at previous seasons' garb being sold in a booth at the entrance to the performance space. The room where the event was being held was really more of a small arena or very large mechanic's garage--a concrete affair with large rolling door entrances and a balcony area on three of the four sides. Plastic tables and chairs were scattered on either side of the catwalk.

The real carioca suggested they wait until after the show to buy any clothes since new stuff might be brought out to the booths at the end. As the space began to fill with people, the faux carioca grew nervous that the booth would be sold out of goods before the end of the evening (she was right). So she insisted on making her purchases before the program began. Afterwards, the two women stood next to the booth observing the crowd. A roving TV journalist made eye contact with her and before she could turn away, a bright light blinded the faux carioca and a microphone was in her face. So it happened that the faux carioca was interviewed for Brazilian TV and gave the journalist the fodder he sought by saying that there were no hooker designer labels in the U.S.

So who attended the event? All manner of people including middle-class slummers, the press, gay men, friends to the ladies, hipster lesbians (hookers? stage managers? both?), artsy types, and a random fag dork. The event began with several poetry and performance pieces that were 'beautified' by a middle-aged queen channeling Galliano who danced around the catwalk and stage with 3 meters of sheer fabric. After the performances a funk band (guitarist, bassist, drummer, keyboardist, a vocalist, and a guy scratching on two turntables) played. The band (whose name the faux carioca never learned) was kick ass and part of a Brazilian soul tradition. The crowd went wild when they did their own version of a song by the legendary Tim Maia (the Brazilian Barry White). For readers curious to know various Brazilian political opinions regarding the forthcoming U.S. election, you might be interested to learn that one singer wore a T-shirt that read, "Barack Obama for President."

After the funk band, a minister of arts talked for too long while nobody listened. The fashion show proper was preceded by members of the samba school, Tijuca, dressed in what appeared to be Elizabethan jester attire. They came out from the shadows and rafters and crept around the space before they began to dance samba as members of the bateria played music. Next a group of about 20 queens in Renaissance attire carrying swords made their dramatic entrance to "O Fortuna" from Carmina Burana. No doubt the gentle reader wonders about the men in centuries-spanning European tights theme. Daspu's latest collection (casual wear and attire for people in the sex industry) is called, "Cruzadas Batalha" (Fighting Crusaders) whose theme is "as cruzadas--entre o botão e a espada" (crusaders--between the button and the sword). Button here means clothes button, but it may very well also be a slang term for a lady's naughty bit.

The collection itself--modeled mostly by prostitutes, one gigantic transvestite, and a telenovela sex symbol--was not as racy as you might imagine. Brazilian fashion-loving prostitutes and the faux carioca agree that super low slung pants are a trend that has been around for far too long. Daspu's collection for spring/summer 2009 included very high-waisted satin bloomers along the lines of a 1930s chorus girl in a Busby Berkeley film. Where it got Brazilian was in the rear with the lower bits of buttocks hanging out, though less extremely so than what one sees on the beaches here. Brass buttons marched down the ass-crack from the waist to further emphasize the much beloved Brazilian bunda. A number of such bloomers and similar trousers were featured along with loose, logo-emblazoned, jersey knit shirts and dresses ornamented by long, thin, gold leather belts wrapped multiple times around the body in a Greco-Roman fashion. One of the faux carioca's favorite pieces was a onesie shorts jumpsuit that looked like an early 20th century bathing costume. In terms of styling the collection, the designers have clearly been minding their Miuccia Prada and coordinated colorful knee-high stockings to be worn with many of their very wearable ensembles.

The faux and real cariocas stayed around afterwards to watch the samba school perform. Your gentle writer has long suspected that carnaval in Rio would be a nightmare for her. This tiny taste of the sambodromo affirmed her suspicions that one hour of eardrum shattering tinny drum beats and countless naked silicone-enhanced asses shaking but not jiggling would be quite enough.

The entire 20 minute drive back to Copacabana the real carioca talked about all of the danger surrounding them--"this area is very dark and dangerous so we can't come to a complete stop, you should never ever go to that place, over there is where the son of a famous surgeon was murdered, look at these dangerous people over here, now we're entering the tunnel where roving gangs stop cars and assault people, I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid to drive by myself after I drop you off, etc." All in all it was a disturbing ride that left the faux carioca no worse for the wear.

Nightlife

Gentle readers may have heard that Rio de Janeiro is a dangerous city. What you have heard is true. At night people in cars tear through traffic lights to avoid being attacked by roving gangs of thugs while their cars are stopped. Certain parts of the city are to be avoided altogether. This is not easy to do considering the city's topographically-influenced way of separating the rich from the poor. There are a number of mountains scattered throughout the city called morros. On the morros are the favelas (slums). In the valleys in between the morros are the shops and the middle-class who must pass through tunnels under the mountains to travel between work and home, etc. Of course not everyone who lives in a morro is a thug. Most people are simply the working poor. Still, it is the drug lords and the thugs who control what happens in the favelas. Though lately it seems the drug lords are being replaced by armed militia-for-hire who have connections to dirty politicians and the police. [See the following recent article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/world/americas/13brazil.html?pagewanted=1&tntemail1=y&emc=tnt]
The faux carioca explains all of this to you so that you understand why she seldom goes out at night. Even the major thoroughfare where her middle-class Copacabana apartment building is located is considered very dangerous after a certain hour (let's call it 11). Oh sure, she could go to Ipanema or Leblon and take a cab back home. But boring, overpriced nightclubs don't interest the faux carioca and she doesn't know anyone who can accompany her to the more interesting bohemian night spots. Still, your faux carioca is nothing if not resourceful when she is determined. Last night she simply had to attend the prostitute fashion show on the wrong side of the city's longest tunnel.

Daspu (www.daspu.com.br) is a fashion line created by a group of prostitutes. "Daspu", of course, being short for das putas (from the whores). In yesterday's O Globo, the faux carioca learned that Daspu was putting on a fashion show so she ditched her plans to crash another fashion event. Readers should note that it has been fashion week in Rio for the spring/summer 2009 Brazilian collections and the faux carioca wanted to catch at least one show. Perhaps not surprisingly, Daspu was not invited to participate in Fashion Rio and so created their own show calling their event "off-fashion." But however to get to the gig?

The faux carioca could find only one person willing to join her and sadly he is a walking target for all manner of assaults. Thankfully there's some kind of magic in the Carmen Miranda Museum. The museum and its staff have been like a charm to your gentle writer. When the faux carioca's target companion realized that it would be safer for everyone if he didn't travel so far afield, she told the delightful staff about her dilemma. The museum's director expressed an interest but had another comittment. One dear woman said she would go and that she had a car--considerably safer than public transportation or trying to find a taxi in the neighborhood after the show ended.

So the two women drove to São Cristão just north of the Sambodromo where the event was being held in a samba school.

To be continued.

Care for queijo?

The faux carioca wishes she knew more about Brazilian cheese. From what she has been able to sniff out thus far, fresh cheeses are more common than aged cheeses. Minas Gerais cheese (named for the state) is especially popular. While the cheeses here are tasty, they are flavorless compared to the sweaty-old-socks stinking French cheeses. On a recent trip to the grocery store the faux carioca noticed a whole host of pricey French cheeses. Yet she couldn't quite figure out if the cheese was unpasteurized. For those of you acquainted with this particular axe that the faux carioca likes to grind, you will know that the unpasteurization of the cheese is key. 'Impurities' breed deliciousness. She hesitated to splurge because the brie was carefully preserved in a refrigerated bin--a no-no in France. For the French, cheese is alive not dead. To put the living edible in a refrigerator is to suggest that the cheese is a corpse bound for the morgue.

The faux carioca will investigate cheese further.

Tristes Tropiques, Poliéster Tropiques

After receiving a WTO ruling in its favor, the Brazilian government recently announced that it was going to seek retaliatory trade sanctions against the U.S. government for cotton subsidies it is required to pay. Money paid to the U.S. to protect the American industry has resulted in higher cotton costs in Brazil. No doubt this explains the proliferation of polyester clothing here.

Some variations of polyester fibers are better than others but ultimately it remains an impractical textile for clothing use in a hot, humid climate. True, it does not hold wrinkles and is easy to care for. But often, though not always, it is ugly and it simply does not breathe.

The faux carioca recently learned that there are several raw materials used to manufacture a range of polyester types. One of them is petroleum, though she is not sure if this is what goes into the making of textiles. Certainly, a fashionable environmentalist's strongest argument in favor of sustainable natural fibers such as cotton and bamboo is not wanting to support the manufacture of petroleum-based polyester clothing. This argument allows her to be both a textile snob and self-righteous. Charming qualities, to be sure. However, this being Brazil, one wonders if the colorful polyester tops that abound aren't running on ethanol.

Beach Antics

Before the faux carioca explains the ugly picture in this posting she wants to get on the good foot and send out birthday wishes. May birthdays included Nicole B., Sharon G., Kristy J., and Brian T. In June Debs C. and Anna K. will celebrate birthdays towards the end of the month. Happy birthday to all. Remember that you have to get down in order to get up.

Sigh. The ugly, swollen and bruised left foot in the photo belongs to the faux carioca. Regular readers may have already guessed how this happened. The will is stronger than the body for the faux carioca and, yes, capoeira, it would seem, serves only to remind.

It was a picturesque sunny Monday at the beach on the island of Morro de São Paulo. Gentle waves, few other tourists, cocktails delivered when the beach bum so much as considered having a drink. Best of all there appeared to be little crime on this part of the island where residents are largely dependent upon tourists for their income. The anxieties and violence of Salvador seemed more than a 2 1/2 catamaran ride away. Yet the faux carioca couldn't simply settle into the sand and sip a caipirinha. She had seen her share of capoeira in recent days and was ready to give it the old college try. Foolishly she decided to practice with someone as inexperienced as she. They both screwed up--he didn't duck, she didn't have sufficient control of her movement to stop--and she spun around to kick the other fellow in the head hitting him squarely with her left ankle bone. The shock of the impact shot up her leg as she tried to walk it off. Her partner assured her that he was fine and was ready to give it another try. Absurdly enough, for a few moments she considered doing so before reason, self-preservation, and sheer pain kicked in.

For the remainder of the afternoon the faux carioca lay on the beach icing her ankle. When one clever fellow noted, "That's not right. You were the aggressor and yet you were the one who got hurt" her mood took a bitter and self-pitying turn. As the sun began to set behind the dark cloud conjured by her gloomy state of mind, the faux carioca limped along the beach silently cursing everyone who failed to notice and help. True, she was too idiotic to swallow her pride and ask for help but anyone could see she was in bad shape. She considered that a thong or a wig might have made her a more appealing wounded bird. At the beach's end, at the bottom of a hill the faux carioca's professor saw her and offered assistance back to the pousada. She gratefully accepted but realized after climbing two steps that she was going to hurt herself more if she had to walk the whole way back. Her only option was a wheelbarrow ride.

There are no cars on this side of the island and resourceful men-for-hire move through the hilly, wet sand streets offering to wheel luggage for tourists between the dock and the pousadas. So the old bag crankily dumped herself into a wheelbarrow and scowled at everyone who did and did not smile at the site of her. Now she is reduced to wearing flip flops everyday and trailing her gimpy left foot behind the rest of her corpse.

Is the ankle broken? Probably not since the foot can be moved but she's ready for the pain--wigless and thongless--to go back to the beaches of Morro de São Paulo where she found it.

This tale should really end here but the excitement of the following day cannot be omitted. In the morning the faux carioca enjoyed a limpy stroll on the beach with her real carioca Portuguese instructor. Along the way, they stopped to have some delicious coconut water straight from the coconut. Mmm mmm good. They stumped to one end of the fourth beach and stumped back to the second beach where lounge chairs and umbrellas could be rented. It could have been the heat. Or maybe it was the coconut. It may also have been the constant pain in her left foot that caused the faux carioca to feel nauseous by the time she sank into her wooden chaise.

Over the course of the next hour or so the faux carioca rapidly hop-stepped to a nearby bathroom when she twice felt overcome by the urge to vomit. Each time proved to be a false alarm. Thank gourd the third time is a charm. As the sun rose higher in the sky someone nearby ordered a plate filled with odoriferous seasoned fish. Another person puffed on a cigarette. A man reeking of stale body fluids stood too close. Wild-eyed and in a sweat, she sprang up from repose and looked around frantically for something to heave into between the chaise and the bathroom. Nothing. Uncontrollably she heaved anyway. Ever mindful of the other beachgoers' meals, she accomplished a feat she had not thought possible and hastily carried a mouthful of vomit to the bathroom where she continued to retch.

Sly Civility

The faux carioca has just returned from a week spent in close quarters with eight undergraduate students plus one nice graduate student with whom she has little in common. The faux carioca does not like to be in close quarters with anyone for an extended period of time and certainly not when she is in potentially dangerous situations. All things considered, she managed to keep the violence to a minimum by only going off on one student, snapping at a second, kicking a third in the head, and restraining from slapping a fourth.

The week-long 'vacation' began in Salvador, Bahia. As many gentle readers may already know, Salvador was a major slave port well into the 19th century. Today African-descended people and culture constitute a vibrant presence here. Because the culture course for our program is very much concerned with matters of race, culture, and national identity, a visit to the historic Pelourinho district in Salvador was not to be missed.

The Pelourinho is an old colonial part of the city with narrow cobbled streets, brightly painted buildings, gorgeous churches and other structures built on the backs of slaves. The churches in particular are meticulously crafted. The facade of one was carved entirely by hand using small dental-type tools. After the churches were built, African-descended people were prohibited from attending mass. The gentle reader protests: Wasn't an important aspect of Portuguese colonization the Catholic project of converting so-called heathens? But some details--like church facades and numbers--are more important than others for the Catholic church. A practicing resemblance to Catholicism that white folk didn't have to look at was A-OK. In a region where many people shared Yoruban or Angolan heritage and remained in contact with each other, elements of earlier African practices were kept alive. This was true in a variety of ways including in the Brazilian religion of Candomblé, which incorporates elements of Catholicism and Yoruban beliefs. Some have argued that Candomblé evolved as a way of masking the Yoruban belief system where some saints have become almost interchangeable with orixás. This is debateable. Yet there is no denying that today elements of Yoruban and Catholic religious practices comingle in Candomblé.

Today Candomblé is not only Afro-Brazilian but also an important part of much of Brazilian culture. Deities/saints regularly materialize through possession of human bodies and can be called upon, supplicated to grant healing, protection, wishes and so on. Truly it is a very rational and hopeful belief system that can hold little appeal for those who see little logic in the ways of the world (world including the material and anything else you like).

On a different note, it is provocative to consider that Candomblé evolved as a form of--if the faux carioca's recollection of Homi Bhabha is correct--sly civility in which the oppressed find ways of resisting oppression while giving the appearance of submission. This perspective is an interesting one when considering Salvador today. The historic Pelourinho district lost its romantic luster made famous by Jorge Amado sometime in the 1960s or so when it became a seedy, violent area. In the 1980s a project (by the city? the state?) was begun to turn the area into a tourist destination. Buildings were renovated, undesirables moved out, and police brought in. This project has been quite successful until very recently. In the past year there has been a trend to return the Pelourinho back to the people. The method for doing so includes removing police from the streets after a certain hour (who knows when?) so that poor people feel comfortable visiting the neighborhood. Unfortunately, many of the poor in Salvador are literally starving to death and are understandably desperate. Imagine this recipe.

Recipe for violent crime: Less than 2% of the city's inhabitants are 'middle-class' the rest are poor and many live on the streets. People are desperate and hungry. Tourists in the Pelourinho are rich and easily identified. Currently we are in the low tourist season. There are no police on the dimly lit streets after a certain hour.

The faux carioca went out dancing one night in the Pelourinho within a four block radius of her hostel. There were five people in her group including one real carioca. The clubs were teeming with young Baianos looking for tourist women to have sex with and probably garner a few drinks or dollars in the process. The faux carioca had a delightful time learning how to dance farol (from the English phrase 'for all') with a handsome gentleman hustler who left her alone when he realized he would not be procuring dollars or sex from her. Everyone seemed to have a delightful time. Just this side of fun's peak, the faux carioca wanted to go back to the hostel. One of her rules of thumb is to leave while she's having a good time because the evening will only end in disappointment. But she was hungry and so were the others so they went to a restaurant on the square. The food took too long to arrive and the 'mathematician' in the group took too long to calculate (to the penny) how much each person owed. Meanwhile, food vendors packed up carts, the streets emptied, and desperate children walked back and forth looking at the people seated on the right side of the sidewalk planters.

The real carioca told the group that they had to walk the two blocks back to the hostel extremely fast. She bolted out of the outdoor cafe and the faux carioca quickly reached her side and locked arms with her. A man immediately approached the cariocas and the real one gave him her water. They wove in and out of scattered carts and people at a speed walker's pace. The faux carioca wondered if the others were behind but couldn't pause to look back. About 18 feet from the hostel she heard one of the others yelling for one fellow to catch up. The cariocas stopped and turned to see a scuffle and someone rip the silver chain off of one of the party's necks. Going back would have been foolish (as it was for the shouter) so they high-tailed it to the hostel where the others caught up. It was at this moment that the faux carioca wanted to slap the straggler for being so slow and not recognizing the danger that he put himself in as well as the rest of the group. The faux carioca has never experienced such an intense 25 yard walk. The faux carioca is not easily frightened but in that five minute walk a violent end did not seem an unlikely prospect.

There's more to the desperate pulse of Salvador. There's always more, but this tale will have to be continued later.