Eli's little sister is visiting from Rio, her 15th birthday present from her parents. Usually, it's tradition for Carioca girls to go to Disney World for their 15th birthday, but it was more affordable and easier for her to come visit us. We have a jam-packed schedule for her, which involves Eli and I switching off, though since I'm still working full time I only have nights and weekends.
His sister has never been outside of Brazil, so this being her first international trip and first taste of the U.S., there are tons and tons of things for her to see and not enough time to do it. Still, I'm trying to keep in mind that she is fundamentally a teenage girl who likes teenagery things, so when I do get time to go out with her, I'm aiming to do stuff with her that she actually thinks are fun.
So far, she's been to Times Square, Madame Tussauds, the Museum of Natural History and the Space Center, Central Park, many, many stores, the ballet, ice skating, and sledding. Eli has the usual line up of museums and tourist attractions on the list, but I'm open to suggestions if anyone has any really fun ideas that would be especially fun for a teenager.
I was always taught never to use quotes in speeches, papers, essays, and the like, but I've always loved them. I have Quote of the Day on my iGoogle and if I come across something I like in a book or a movie, I always add it to my quote collection. Here's part of it:
"The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned." - Antonio Gramsci ["O desafio da modernidade é viver sem ilusões, sem se tornar desiludido."]
My syntax is highly complicated cuz I emigrated from the single greatest little place in the Caribbean Dominican Republic/I love it, Jesus, I'm jealous of it --In the Heights (musical)
"It's
OK, muchacha, he said. Santo Domingo will always be there. It was there
in the beginning and it will be there in the end." --Junot Diaz, in The
Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
"There is nothing in the world so monstrously vast as our indifference." -- Machado de Assis (I found this quote originally in English, and for the life of me I cannot find the original in Portuguese)
La indiferencia es bizca. -Carlos Eire, in Waiting for Snow in Havana [Indifference is cross eyed]
תיקון עולם - Repairing the world
Conoces bien, cada guerra, cada herida, cada ser Conoces bien cada guerra en la vida y el amor tambien. --Sergio Vargas, "La Quiero a Morir"
"Os ricos não podem continuar vivendo como se fossem uma ilha no meio de um mar de pobreza." --Ayrton Senna [The wealthy cannot continue to live as if they were on an island in a sea of poverty.]
Lo ha hecho pecho. --Cuban saying [What's done is done]
"O povo sabe o que quer mas o povo também quer o que não sabe." - Gilberto Gil [The people know what they want, but the people also want what they don't know.]
Deja que el mundo te cambie y cambiarás el mundo. -The Motorcycle Diaries [Let the world change you and you will change the world.]
There's no rehab for stupidity. -Chris Rock
"El que tiene un derecho no obtiene el de violar el ajeno para mantener el suyo." - Jose Marti [Someone with rights cannot violate the rights of others to maintain his own]
"Todos los días la gente se arregla el cabello, ¿por qué no el corazón?" - Ernesto Che Guevara [Every day we fix our hair, why not our hearts?]
"You've
got to have an exit strategy to stay principled. If not, you'll
compromise principal for materialism and comfort." - Omar Minaya
"Mas se você achar/Que eu tô derrotado/Saiba que ainda estão rolando os dados..." - Cazuza
"Morar em Nova York é bom, mas é uma merda. Morar no Rio é uma merda, mas é bom." -- Tom Jobim [Living in New York is good, but it sucks. Living in Rio sucks, but it's good.]
"Los
seres humanos no nacen para siempre el día en que sus madres los
alumbran, sino que la vida los obliga a parirse a sí mismos una y otra
vez." - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"Paradise was always over there,
a day's sail away. But it's a funny thing, escapism. You can go far and
wide and you can keep moving on and on through places and years, but
somehow you never escape your own life. I, finally, knew where my life
belonged. Home." --J. Maarten Troost
Today I wrote about the Lula movie over on the FPB Blog, and it got me thinking: can a movie really have that big of a political impact?
Lula is being accused of using the movie to campaign for Dilma. While there may be some truth to that, it's sort of insulting to Brazilians to assume that a movie would be enough to sway such a significant portion of the electorate. But it's serious stuff; the case is now at the Supreme Court (Lula has been accused by the opposition of campaigning before the legal campaign period). On an online poll about what people thought about the film, around 11 percent said it was great, 28 percent said it sucked, and 58 percent said it was nothing more than political propaganda. I know that those kind of surveys are statistically BS, but it is interesting to see a trend, at least.
Since I haven't seen the movie yet, I can't make any judgments about it or imagine what kind of effect it could have. So I'd like to open up the floor: have you seen the movie? What did you think? Is it really worth all the fuss?
One of my favorite Brazilian movies is Caramuru, a historic parody about the "discovery" of Brazil. I wish there was an actual serious historic film about colonization in Brazil, but my experience with Brazilian culture has been that when it comes to sensitive, painful parts of history, they tend to be glossed over or satirized in order to cope with the collective memory of that period or event. In the US, we tend just to completely romanticize or "edit" details to our liking, especially in Hollywood.
In any event, if you haven't seen it already, go out and rent it! Here's one of the very funny scenes, where the Native American negotiates with the Portuguese explorer.
Pensei que o inverno seria um inferno, já que passei quase mais de dois anos sem sentir o frio. Na verdade, não foi tão ruim assim, mas com certeza foi um choque. Odeio ter que colocar roupa até sentir sofocada, ficar com a pele seca e irritada, e sentir o corpo entorpecido quando estiver na rua. Por isso, adorei o post do comediante La Peña, que está passeando em Nova Iorque e sofrendo com o clima (não gostei da parte homofóbica, mas esse é um tema para outro dia). Confiram:
"Outra coisa, carioca acha que roupa de frio é caretice. Se recusa a por
uma touca ridícula ou calçar luvas, coisa de boiola. Macho que é macho
bate queixo e jura que tá acostumado. E sai na rua crente que tá
abafando. Mas aqui não tem nada abafando. É tudo congelante.
Principalmente o vento que te corta em quinze pedaços. A última vez que
saí daqui do quentinho meu nariz e três dedos da mão caíram e foram
arrastados pelo tufão ártico até o rio Hudson. Só os recuperei porque
eles não aguentaram o frio e voltaram pra mim."
Since it's a census year, I thought I'd put up a few polls to get a feel for where the blog is at in terms of readership. Last time I checked, it was over 70% Brazilians. But I'd like to get some new info, too so if you have a minute, all you have to do is click!
For the first question, I'm interested in seeing how people discovered the blog. For the second question, I'm interested in your country of origin, where you were born and grew up. Finally, I'm interested in seeing how many readers are in the blogosphere.
I've had this post on the back burner for awhile, and the time has come to put it up and make it a page, as well. I'd like to dispel some misunderstandings about commenting on this blog, and to provide some real-life examples to put things into perspective. For those of you with your own blogs, if you can't relate to this yet, you will likely be able to in the future.
FAQ: Comments
1. You're all about free speech, and yet you moderate your comments. That's unfair!
Contrary to what some believe, free speech does not apply to commenters. Most major blogs, newspapers, magazines, and websites moderate their comments in some form due to the hailstorm of crazy that is the Internet. For some real life examples, consider this:
At political rallies, only certain people are chosen to speak, and usually plan ahead of time what they will say. In magazines, they never publish every letter to the editor they receive; they only pick a few to use. In newspapers, op-ed pieces are carefully chosen from a huge pool. On the TV news, much more footage is taken than actually goes into a broadcast; it is meticulously pared down to only certain interviews or certain parts of interviews. On the radio, only certain callers are picked to speak on the air.
