Cotidiano de uma brasileira em Paris, comentarios sobre cultura, politica e besteiras em geral. Entre le faible et le fort c'est la liberté qui opprime et la loi qui libère." Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Faith? No More

So then she turns to me and says "Bel, they're IN São Paulo! Do you understand what that means?"

I did understand. It meant we were not going to be able to go to their concert. So I turn to her and I says...I says "well, Anette, do you know what that means?" She didn't, so I explained it to her as though she were 8 years old. "That means we must find a way to go to the hotel where they're staying and see them, meet them, see if we can talk to them, somehow, since we can't hear them play." But how? We were broke, 13 (me) 15 (Anette) and 13 and a half (Anette's sister, Lili), and it was a weekday.

I don't normally talk about my personal life on here but just last week I came across an album that blew my mind. Yes, it was Mike Patton -- again. He still has the ability to make me stop and listen, which happens less and less frequently the more I approach old prunedom.

"Let's just take a bus and go there, ffs." Anette was daring, far more than I was. Problem was: end of the week, allowance a distant memory.
So we took the bus and hoped the controller wouldn't ask us for the tickets. He did. We begged him to pretend he hadn't noticed. He did.

São Paulo city centre, 2PM, 3 teenagers in Catholic school uniform, roaming the streets holding a camera...but no film. No money to buy it either. "Well...you know what that means, don't you?" Anette asks both me and Lili. She liked asking these Qs to which she'd then provide an answer. We all did. It somehow made us look clevererer. "What?", both I and Lili ask. "We'll have to...shoplift."

We walk into the Korean shop nonchalantly and start asking the hardworking, far clevererer than we were (yes, even then, even in Brasil, that stereotype was known) shopkeeper if we could have a look at the 36-exp. films they had...you know, so we could compare prices and all...also, while you're at it, could we have a look at some of those cameras? They look awfully nice. Anette, being 15, was a little quicker than both Lili and I, and knew exactly what to say. Before we went in, she told me what the plan was, so I just went along, albeit quite eagerly.

I put the film in my pocket as they distracted the shopkeeper with endless requests, and walked out. They took a little longer to leave the store, and we all met at the hotel (Hilton) where we'd heard Faith No More were staying. We got it right, they'd been staying there... except they'd just left as we arrived.

"Oh shit. What now?" Against yrs of parental advice as well as our better judgment, we took a taxi to SP Int'l airport, without a penny to call our own.
Halfway there we realize we had no idea where Faith No More were going next, and that they could very well have gone to the domestic airport instead. Too late. Forward, always.

Upon arrival, we ask every single security officer if he's seen a hard rock band walking past. "As a matter a fact I have," says one of them, "if you mean men with dirty long hair." So we rush to the departure lounge, hoping to catch them.

And we managed. We actually managed to meet these ppl. I remember screaming this man's name from about 500metres away (Mike!! Wait UPPPPP!), waving the by then loaded camera above my head and running in my school uniform toward them. I now see they were quite amused by this completely ridiculous display and so indulged us. In less than perfect English I ask "can we have a photo, maybe? We've come all the way from the Hilton without money!" He said "oh sure...no problem, but walk while you take the photo, we're late." So I run ahead of them...and as I'm getting to a point where a good-ish photo can be taken, I fall down. It hurt like... like something that hurts a lot, and I was embarrassed, but I took the photo from where I was, on the floor, as they approached me. Then another. The bass player helps me up, we all laugh... they carry on, I'm left to nurse my ankle.

I'll never know what the photo turned out like since Anette had the camera confiscated by her stepmother when she found out what we'd been up to all afternoon, after she got a call from a certain taxi driver who had Anette's ID card & phone number (the only way we could persuade him not to call the police on us) and wanted to be paid for the airport drive. I wonder if she ever found out how we came back from the airport...

It was worth it though.


Then:

Now:

Epilogue

Later that evening, I called Anette on the phone and demanded she come with me to the parish where I woke up the school priest and confessed to everything. Not a very hard rock attitude, but that was never my intention anyway.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Bella Ciao!



Italian lyrics
Una mattina mi son svegliato,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
Una mattina mi son svegliato,
e ho trovato l'invasor.
O partigiano, portami via,
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
O partigiano, portami via,
ché mi sento di morir.
E se io muoio da partigiano,
(E se io muoio sulla montagna)
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
E se io muoio da partigiano,
(E se io muoio sulla montagna)
tu mi devi seppellir.
E seppellire lassù in montagna,
(E tu mi devi seppellire)
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
E seppellire lassù in montagna,
(E tu mi devi seppellire)
sotto l'ombra di un bel fior.
Tutte le genti che passeranno,
(E tutti quelli che passeranno)
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
Tutte le genti che passeranno,
(E tutti quelli che passeranno)
Mi diranno «Che bel fior!»
(E poi diranno «Che bel fior!»)
«È questo il fiore del partigiano»,
(E questo è il fiore del partigiano)
o bella, ciao! bella, ciao! bella, ciao, ciao, ciao!
«È questo il fiore del partigiano,
(E questo è il fiore del partigiano)
morto per la libertà!»
(che e' morto per la liberta')

Avanti!
English translation
One morning I awakened
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
One morning I awakened
And I found the invader
Oh partisan carry me away
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
Oh partisan carry me away
Because I feel death approaching
And if I die as a partisan
(And if I die on the mountain)
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
And if I die as a partisan
(And if I die on the mountain)
Then you must bury me
Bury me up in the mountain
(And you have to bury me)
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
Bury me up in the mountain
(And you have to bury me)
Under the shade of a beautiful flower
And the people who shall pass
(And all those who shall pass)
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
And the people who shall pass
(And all those who shall pass)
Will tell me: "what a beautiful flower"
(And they will say: "what a beautiful flower")
This is the flower of the partisan
(And this is the flower of the partisan)
Oh Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful, Goodbye beautiful! Bye! Bye!
This is the flower of the partisan
(And this is the flower of the partisan)
Who died for freedom

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Mas Que Nada


Since the Kiss Paintings entry, I've been thinking about doing the same thing but with music. The choice was either between different versions of the same song or different songs by the same artist. I chose the first option since I find it easier to pick one that way.

I picked 'Mas Que Nada' because I rilly like it (obviously) but also because it's well-known now. So...here it is.

Which is your fav version?



Jorge Ben Jor Original Version



Sergio Mendes Brazil '66 Version



Pushkin Quintett Version



Tamba Trio



Sergio Mendes & Black Eyed Peas Version




Vila Isabel sidewalk, Rio de Janeiro

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Oh my dear paws! Oh my fur and whiskers!

I know... I've been neglecting the blog recently. It's with good cause, though. I won't get into it, but for those of you who have emailed about it, all is well with me, yes, but I just haven't had time! timetimetime!
But here's a song I've been listening to this week. From a long, long time ago.

********


Cartola

Preciso me encontrar

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

The Dying Animal Sailing to Byzantium

Last week I read Philip Roth's The Dying Animal - a very good but depressing, cynical book about love.

Roth can write, so he made me want to go and re-read Yeats's Sailing to Byzantium, a poem that ended up inspiring more than one title!: (bad punctuation alert...)

THAT is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
- Those dying generations - at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Me gustas cuando callas

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente,
y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te toca.
Parece que los ojos se te hubieran volado
y parece que un beso te cerrara la boca.

Como todas las cosas están llenas de mi alma
emerges de las cosas, llena del alma mía.
Mariposa de sueño, te pareces a mi alma,
y te pareces a la palabra melancolía.

Me gustas cuando callas y estás como distante.
Y estás como quejándote, mariposa en arrullo.
Y me oyes desde lejos, y mi voz no te alcanza:
déjame que me calle con el silencio tuyo.

Déjame que te hable también con tu silencio
claro como una lámpara, simple como un anillo.
Eres como la noche, callada y constelada.
Tu silencio es de estrella, tan lejano y sencillo.

Me gustas cuando callas porque estás como ausente.
Distante y dolorosa como si hubieras muerto.
Una palabra entonces, una sonrisa bastan.
Y estoy alegre, alegre de que no sea cierto.

Pablo Neruda