Who cares about... if R.E.M. has new wonderful songs?

In my last blog, I wrote once about a great new song by R.E.M., which is going to be in their new album, "Accelerate". The song is "living well's the best revenge", which now seems more beautiful and relevant than half a year ago. The good thing is that it's got the company of "Supernatural Superserious", another great new song.

So, it is a saturday night and I decided not to go out. Actually, my life this week was full of "deciding not to...". Is it a sign of depression? It is probably the lack of exercise (my prominent belly reminds me) together with being absolutely lost about present and future, but, as the title says, who cares? There is still R.E.M. and it is still very very good.

Supernatual Superserious:


Living well's the best revenge

It's all true

Even if all I can think about is my job and my search for a flat, it is rather too soon to write about it. If I tried, I would only moan and complain and I am not such a person. hahahaha.

Now it is friday night and I have had the obligatory beer in a bar after work. Now I am relaxed and in denial about my problems. In a moment like this I realize how São Paulo is cool. I look beyond and I see me in love for this city. I might even be right: I will fall in love for this city. If I can believe it now, after a hell of a week, it might be true.

By the way, thruth is the word of this week. A traditional documentary film festival called "É tudo Verdade" (it is all true) started today. It is one of the biggest documentary film festivals in the word. It is all over the cinemas in the city and several movies are being shown near my work. Better yet, they are all free (God, I love this word). Tomorrow I might see one film. I chose a film by Marcel Ophüls, called "The Sorrow and the Pity". It is abou the french reaction to the nazi invasion. Aparently, it denies that they resisted that much and shows images of prompt support to the nazi cause.

This is the trailler:

São Paulo will be better

So here I am in São Paulo for almost a week and today was my first day of work.
What can I say? It has been so tough!

Every and other time, I remember a famous song by Caetano Veloso called "Sampa". In it, he describes his first impressions of São Paulo. The part I mostly relate to is when he says that "quem vem de outro sonho feliz de cidade, aprende depressa a chamar-te de realidade"(it translates as "who comes from other happy dream of a city, quickly learns to call you (São Paulo) reality").

And, of course, it had some nice moments. Actually, being honest, they were really few. But, as I say in the title, São Paulo will be better. It will start to be as soon as I find a flat. I decided so!

Aquavit

It might be expensive (very), but going out to a nice restaurant can be such a boost of energy and good mood that it can actually pay off. Yesterday I was invited to go to "Aquavit", a new 5 stars restaurant that is located outside Brasília and from where one can see the Paranoá lake and the entire skyline of the city. It is simply breathtaking.

The chef is actually from Copenhagen and he came to our table (we were the only customers that night) and we talked a bit about Lund and the Oresund region, but I did not tell him that Copenhagen is not really my cup of tea. The food was really good and the fact that every plate came with a different exquisite wine made us feel quite relaxed and happy by the end of the meal. Besides, the music they played there was 5 stars as well, from Billy Holiday to Maysa.

All and all, it was an amazing night, just as I needed. Seriously, I truly needed and deserved it.

The beautiful skyline of Brasília:

Pre-moving

One of the few things I have been enthusiastic about these days is to watch "Manhattan Connection", a Brazilian TV show that is broadcasted on sunday nights on a payed tv channel. It is just an hour of informal talk between journalists, most of them living in NY. It is about culture as well as politics and economy. It is just fun to see intelligent people chatting without a very serious tone.

I guess my lack of interest for many other things (these includes videogames and sex...) happens because I am three days to take a flight and move to São Paulo. There are so many things to do that I just do not do anything and I completely lost my power of observating anything. Simply saying: nothing is that interesting if you can only think about personal errands. But yes, I am going to São Paulo on saturday and... we'll see. I guess it will be fine.

Music is the hot sex of imaginary people

Since last week, the indie and pop news here have talked and talked about the unofficial video clip from CSS (Cansei de Ser Sexy) that has become the most viewed video of you tube history!!!

Seriously, almost 110 million people have seen (?) the video until today. The fact is, nobody believes it and there are hundreds of conspiratory theories about it already. My favorite is that the words "hot" and "sex" are attacting all kinds of perverts to see the video. hahahahaha

Of course there is a glitche in the you tube website and something is wrong. Even the band has said that there is something wrong and that they do not believe in this number. However, thinking handsite, it is very good that the glitche is promoting something like CSS and music is my hot hot sex than anything else. Better yet, it is a private movie, made by an italian fan. Imagine if the glitche were putting something relegious on the top of youtube. It would be REALLY the end of the world as we know it.

Better than CSS, only if this had happened with Britney Spears. Afterall, she cannot be forgotten just yet.

So, if you want to help CSS on the top (not that they need it, apparently) this is the video:


And if you want to check on this AMAZING video about Britney Spears fanatism. It is on the youtube awards of 2007. Check it here:

Day 2, Brazilian Movie 2

I was aware that in the first days back to Brazil I was too emotional. I was aware that the Brazilian films I was seeing had that fair moments of emotional manipulation. And I was aware that I was emotionally manipulated by both movies. I cried in the end of both.

"O signo da cidade" (something like " the astrological sign of the city") is irresistibly like "Crash, the american movie that I truly detested for being so dishonest. However, unlike "Crash", I truly enjoyed "O signo da cidade" and it felt very honest to me. At times, while wathcing the movie, I even felt grateful for the theme of the movie: people, Brazilians in Brazil's biggest city.

But why did I cry again at the end of the movie? I dare to answer: probably because of the most ordinary cliche. I have seen myself so strongly in the movie, in almost all characters. I know I was manipulated by the movie, but this awareness did not make this emotion to feel any less valid.

Oscar Freire Street

Overheard conversations on Oscar Freire Street, one of the most fashionble and expensive streets in Säo Paulo:

"To her, 10000 reais (approximately 6000 dollars) is a lot of money."

"Ah, "Lost" (the american series) is a necessit to me. It is my mental food."

While walking in this street, on my second day back to Brazil, I felt excluded as I never felt anywhere in Europe. At least, I also felt that I did not want to belong there.

Still not about Johnny

Just a while later I saw the poster of "My name is not Johnny". The posters says that "He had it all, but limits."

Ho can Brazilians have limits? With few exceptions, we are not thaught about that. We still think, for instance, that public money is nobody's money. we believe all chances shall be taken advantage of, regardless... regardless anything.

Lack of limits can explain so much in Brazil. Corruption comes to my mind as a prime example. As a counterbalance, I remeber carnival. Every year, we have an official obligation to put our limits to the test.

Seeing the Brazilian experience, specially the carnival, I think that lack of limits not always represents the fuel for a burning revolution. It can also be (as it is in Brazil) a recipe for everything to remain the same.

In a Fashionable Clothes Shop

In the heat of Brazilian summer, I urgently needed to buy some clothes as soon as I arrived in Sao Paulo. This happened in the shop. It started while I was trying on some t-shirts.

The salesperson was talking to another salesperson and to a client. He said he would diiiie if Hebe (a Brazilian TV host approximately 100 years old) ever come to the shop. The client said he would die if he saw her as well. Daniela, the other salesperson, stopped the conversation to ask me if the everything I was trying on fit me. By now, I was being called by my name. Afterall, we had meet five minutes ago alreay.

The t-shirt was good (and so were the other three that I bought). We kept talking, now about ME. Yes, I was living abroad. Yes, Sweden is very cold, but it is beautiful. If the swedes are liberal? yes, very much. If the do topless on the beaches during the summer? of course, it is a natural thing there.

Then the guy who adored Hebe comes us again. He was lauging out loud. He shows every customer in the shop a glass of water with something inside. He shows it to me. It is a penis. "It was very small. It grows if you put it under water", he says. The entire shop laughs almost hysterically. The penis was bigger then the glass right now. No sign of water anymore.

So, asks Daniela, where will you live? I answer that I do not know yet. "I love nomads", she replies.

I said goodbye to the salespersons and the other clients of the shop. A while after, I realized they were the first people I actually talked to since I arrived in Brazil. Quite fun!

How do You Relate to Your Country?

First night in Brazil, shocked, as expected, on how the slums are big, the steaks are good, people looking in my eyes, understandable conversations (unfortunately) all around, Sao Paulo’s noise, its harsh beauty, people walking slow…

So I went to see a Brazilian movie, “My name is not Johnny”. It is about this guy, this charismatic guy, this middle-class-liberal-with-good-friends kind of guy, who from smoking a joint and sniffing some dust becomes quite a drug dealer. He ventures in Europe, makes a big deal there, gets loaded and burns it all before coming back. He was having a blast.

While in this blast, of course, he faces the corrupted cops, who he pays in order to have it taken easy on him, and then he faces less flexible cops, who send him to jail. And then, of course, the film shows the Carandiru-like scenes in the detention and so on…

Eventually, his lawyer convinces the judge that he could not entirely respond for his acts (he sniffed 100 grams of cocaine a week, for Christ’s sake) and so he is removed to a judicial mental institution. He manages to survive there and he was freed in 2 years time. Today he is a music producer.

Yeah, the movie was based on true facts and the judge who convicts João (that’s his name, not Johnny) affirms he is an example that it is POSSIBLE to recuperate someone.

But, coming back to my initial question, how do you relate to your country?

In a letter addressed to our cool guy, the judge also says that “the true place of birth is the one where you look intelligently upon yourself for the first time.” …

Brazil challenges me, it puzzles me. Fundamentally, it destroys my innocence. How do I relate to that? How we, Brazilians, can relate to such thing? Maybe, possibly, by creating a fresh “innocence” on a daily basis, conscientious that it will be very soon destroyed, but creating it nonetheless. I reborn here, probably not by looking intelligently upon myself, but by reinventing fresh beliefs, opinions and values to be soon challenged and destroyed.

So maybe that is how we relate to one another and to this amazing (for good and bad) part of the Earth. After the movie, people stare at me. I wonder what kind of innocence they created today and, more importantly, how tonight will destroy it. I stare back. I cannot hide from them. They know, deep inside, my innocence is to be destroyed soon as well.