Rio Blog: April 14-20, 2008

Queridos ~ I ended last week’s log with: “Monday was my trip to Niteroi for an inspiring music session w/ Marcilio, and tonight I am going to Trapiche to hear him play…” I must learn not to try to predict the future while in Rio… My trip to see Marcilio on Monday is, indeed, marvelous. The skies are cloudy & it is blowing & misty but, after email “singing” happy birthday to my sister in Portuguese, I decide to take the ferry to Niteroi anyway, rather than the bus. Because how many times can you take a boat to your music lesson? So I catch the 107 bus to Praca XV (pronounced “prah-sah keen-zee”. It took quite awhile to realize the written and spoken were the same place.)

The boat takes 20 minutes to get to Niteroi, then I get another bus to the main beach where Marcilio picks me up. I have brought along copies of my waltz for Joel & 2 unfinished choro that have been languishing for nearly a year. Marcilio helped confirm/ correct my chord choices for “Siga en Frente” last year, so I want to talk to him more about choro chord progressions and get some ideas so maybe I can finish these other two. It’s a great afternoon – I learn so much about the unusual progressions and chord voicings that are actually usual in choro, giving it its characteristic flavor. He grabs his guitar and enthusiastically hunts for the right sound with me – there’s never just one choice – and helps me come up with some great chords for the waltz as well. Otimo!

After cake & a cafezinho he drives me to a dock closer to his house where I take a faster boat back to Rio, and walk to the nearby Ingreja da Antiga Se for a concert Henrique has called me about in the morning. The music is a requiem written by Marcos Portugal in 1816 for Queen Maria I, that was recently discovered & reconstructed for this concert as part of the celebration of 300 years of the Portuguese court in Rio. I am a half hour early, but it is already SRO, and there are TV cameras and lighting everywhere. I sit on the floor on my music bag and listen to the work – lovely, if overly influenced by Mozart and the Italian baroque- but am surprised not to see Henrique in the cello section.

I call his cell when it’s over & he is waiting for me outside. I’m still not entirely sure why he didn’t play, but whatever it is it has him annoyed. We drive to his son’s house to pick up his camera as Henrique has found a treasure trove of documents on the composer who is the subject of his doctoral dissertation in a small library in Friburgo, and he is going there to study & hopefully photograph them the next day. It is good to see him, as always, however briefly and however disgruntled he may be.

When I get home there are several emails from my advisees @ RWU who need help right away, so I am up late taking care of that. I am allowing myself to be on call 24/7 for the students while I am here in Rio. It seems that as we are not meeting for class twice a week they need quick responses to their emails to reassure them that we are still in touch. Teaching online allows me to be here, which is wonderful, but it takes as much time as teaching at home. I spend 6-8 hours on Monday and often Tuesday as well grading the past week’s work, posting grades, and sending update emails to the classes. The other 5 days it’s 2 or 3 hours answering emails and checking in on the online discussions. And then there’s the extra time for advising, looking up all the necessary information on the RWU website, and the things I do for fun, like researching & posting the “Brazilian rock song of the week”. I thought all the hours spent setting this up before I left would be the bulk of the work, but I was wrong. It’s really a good thing I have wireless internet here in my room or I would never get all the work done. Most of the students seem to have handled the transition to online well, and having the technical gurus @ RWU to refer problems to definitely helps. There are only a couple of students who have gone awol, and I’m sure they will check in w/ likely excuses when I return.

Tuesday I stick close to the computer as I have to finish last week’s grading. It’s a dismal rainy day & as a treat Marcelo makes brownies and maracuja jello. Apparently the tart fruit jello unlocks the chocolate. All I can say is- yummy! As a reward for my hard day in the office I am going to hear Marcilio sub @ Trapiche that night, but when I arrive he isn’t there, the music starts late (I write a nice sonnet & drink a caipirinha while I wait), and when it does it’s 4 different subs, there is no bandolim, and after about half an hour I am the only person in the bar who is not playing or working – dismal! I sneak upstairs to the bathroom and call TaxiPaulo to come get me asap! He’s there quickly & is talking to the doorman as I pay my bill. Apparently the days of choro at Trapiche are numbered, as the owners are unhappy that no one is coming, so they are probably going to turn Tuesday into another samba night. So sad – I have such great memories of the rodas here – I’m sure glad I came to every one I could!

Wednesday – sorely missing my usual lesson w/ Joel, who is still recording – I am once again working hard, but this time on my choro “Por Que Não?”. I put in the new chords and try to make some headway on the 3rd section, but it defies definition. It’s a cloudy day, but I go for a walk to stretch my legs, and give myself the photo assignment of taking pictures of doors in Urca. It’s interesting & soon expands its focus, as you can see in the pictures. I make a trip to centro by bus and metro to go to the bank & buy tickets for Epoca de Ouro who are playing on Sunday. This is the end of their national tour to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Jacob do Bandolim’s birth. They’re playing in a small hall so I don’t want to take a chance that the show will sell out, even though they are there for four nights.

In the evening I get word @ dinner that Maizie has had to have emergency surgery & is home from the hospital now recovering, but we will not be recording for her film on Thursday. So I arrange w/ Mirian to go visit her artist friend who painted the large soulful woman who watches over my bed and several other paintings in the house that I have fallen in love with. Muito legal!

Thursday begins w/ a funny encounter w/ a maracuja. Marcelo has told me that I should put one in my yogurt in the morning, so I cut one in half & scoop the seeds into the compost bin, but it’s as hard as a rock! I save it to ask Marcelo what’s wrong, and he smiles and says that I was supposed to eat what I threw away. It seems impossible, since the juice I’ve had is so orange and delicious, I imagined it must come from a peach-like fruit, not something that looks like the seeds inside a papaya. Ah, well… another lesson in Brazilian culture. I try it again the next morning & it is good and the seeds are nice and crunchy.

After struggling unsuccessfully yesterday to find a melody I like for the 3rd section of “Por Que Não,” the germ of one seems to have formed itself in my brain overnight, so I record it and fool around w/ some themes. I also have a good idea for the 2nd part of my slow choro, “Tercas no Trapiche,” and realize that it might just be a 2-part piece, as many slow choro are. I’ve just finished capturing my ideas on my recorder when Miriam descends from her upstairs room and we take the bus to the studio apartment of Maria Cisneiros in the Gloria neighborhood. As we walk in Maria is holding a painting that she says she just finished yesterday and I am instantly smitten.

I don’t know why, but her work always makes me smile and feel that life is pretty fine. The paintings are fairly-priced, though still expensive for me, but I buy the just-finished one & another smaller one– you see them in the pic of Marcia & Mirian – as well as two smaller ones on paper, because she will give me a discount for the 4, because she knows I love them. And I still feel happy, if surprised at myself, when I agree to give her all the money I have with me, and make the necessary bank withdrawals over the course of the next 2 days and return with the rest. But I need something in my Providence house that overflows with Brazilian-ness and reminds me of the feeling of joy that spontaneously opens in my brain for absolutely no reason except that I am here, so why not be happy – por que não! And in the evening I finish the choro of that name, which makes me happy too.

Friday morning I make the bank-studio pilgrimage to pay Maria, print out PQN, and stop for lunch at my favorite local botequim, Laguna Lanche e Pizzeria, on my way home. As I am having my usual Acai & grilled chicken sandwich, I somehow notice for the first time the flavors of the juice-drinks in the square glass circulating containers behind the lunch counter – reminiscent of old-fashioned snack bars in the US. But while we would have orange-aide, grape, and something red that purports to be cherry, the flavors here are guava, tangerine, and lime. Somehow the thought of guava (goiaba) being one of the big 3 flavors makes me smile.

Joel calls as I am walking home to see if I can come for a lesson as he finally has a day off from recording. Not today, alas, but Saturday? There is no EPM because of the holidays so I am free. He checks & calls back to say yes – great news! I stop at home for my music and bandolim and return to the public transportation system to meet Romulo @ 2:30 @ Estaão, near his apartment in Rio Comprido. We are driving to Mage to record w/ Pablo, and I’ve got my PJs & toothbrush because we’ll probably stay overnight if it goes late, as Mage is an hour drive north.

Unlike the 2 tunes we recorded last week, these 3 choro are band tunes and R & I are putting our parts down w/ Pablo’s guitar, to await the others who are unavailable today and so will record later. Pablo is not quite home when we arrive so we wait a bit then get to work. Around 11:00 PM, with 2 tunes arranged and recorded, I finally convince the guys to stop for pizza, and we meet Marcele, Pablo’s wife, as we are walking to the pizzeria and she comes too. Mage is a 1-road town, and it’s dirt. There are groups of people sitting in small local bars and snack shops, children playing in the streets, & we pass many people they know on the way. We eat, joke, talk, and return to P’s studio to try to record the 3rd tune, Bola Preta, but give up @ 2:30 AM with it still unfinished.

We sleep a few hours, get up, talk out production issues, eat breakfast, change some things in the mix of 3 previously-recorded tunes, and R & I make it back to Urca just in time for me to change my clothes, grab my recorder, and head out w/ TaxiPaulo for my lesson w/ Joel. And it’s a good one, well, they’re all good, but this one includes a break-through that occurs because I’m still trying to figure out why I couldn’t be Brazilian enough to play the 3rd section of Bola Preta convincingly last night. Joel somehow opens that door, and I am heartened to feel that when I return in June to put down this final track for the CD I will be ready to nail it.

Joel also goes upstairs and brings down his “golden bandolim,” the one from 1964 that he recorded all of his classic LPs with. It has some issues w/ the top collapsing now so he has moved on to other instruments, but this one is really special, and it’s a treat to be able to play it. TaxiPaulo comes in and takes pictures w/ his phone so I take out my camera & we both take some including the two here. On the way home I talk TP – who is not having much fun lately – into stopping for dinner. Speaking of fun – there is no really good translation in Portuguese. The dictionary meaning of “diversão” just isn’t right – that’s “amusing” which isn’t really “fun,” it’s something else. “Prazer” is too sensual – have fun!… that was fun… he’s a lot of fun to hang out with… – amusing or pleasure just aren’t right. Nobody here has been able to come up w/ a good term, so TP & I have just made fun a Portu-glish word. “Voce precisa ter mais fun!” (You need to have more fun). And he does, so we go out to a chicken barbeque restaurant & sit at the counter and talk to some Brazilian ladies, and some doo-rag dudes from Baltimore, and try to get the waiters to think of a translation for fun. No luck, but we do have some.

Sunday I head off early to the Hippie Fair (Feria de Hype) to look for some replacement seed-pod ear rings for my niece Ellis who was distressed when one of her original pair was crushed in her luggage. I comb the place but my Amazon guy isn’t there, but I do find some that are different but cool. I’ve got my bandolim in a backpack, instead of its usual case, because I’m going to the São Salvador roda afterwards, but just can’t see fording the crowds @ the Fair w/ my case. It turns out to be a conversation starter – who knew? I talk to lots of people & have fun in Portuguese. Catch a bus & metro to the roda & still have time to play for an hour or so, & then eat a late & interesting lunch w/ Rafael (not AnF’s, a different one), Luiz, Casio, and Monica – a film maker who comes to the rodas to listen.

Rf & I leave about 5:00 to go to the Epoca de Ouro concert. I have a ticket & he doesn’t & it’s sold out, but he & a couple of others from the roda who are waiting all get in when some of the reservations fail to show up to claim their tickets a half hour ahead. I wander upstairs to the theater – I was there once before w/ Brinsley & Alex to see Daniela Speilman – and ask the guard if I’m in the right place. He says no, the door’s locked, I should go down the hall, door on the left. And when I do I laugh, because he’s sent me backstage – because of the bandolim on my back he thinks I’m playing! Too funny! But since I’m there I laugh about the situation w/ Jorge do Pandeiro & wander in to say hi to Ronaldo, who gives me a hug & introduces me to everyone, as he always does, and I leave my backpack+bandolim on a front row seat & go back out to stand in line in the proper place. I’m soon joined by Romulo & Mariana, and then Jesse, whose gf Beth has gone off to dinner w/ friends instead. The concert is really good, and there are some surprise Japanese guest artists who variously play choro on sax, sing samba, and play traditional Japanese music on a koto. Afterwards we go out for dinner & a chopp (draft beer) & then I go home to work a bit online and sleep.

It’s my last week in Rio, so the next & final update will be sent from my own house in Providence. Life here in the pink room in Urca has been good – & hopefully I’ll be able to come back when I return mid-June, although Mirian may rent the room for a year so nothing is certain. I’m not worried though – eu tenho sorte no Rio (I have luck in Rio), so something, the right thing, will occur. I hope your gardens are a riot of flowers and that spring is truly sprung. It’s looking like another sunny day here- 2 in a row!- and I’m caught up on grading, so maybe I’m going to be able to find some of that indefinable Brazilian fun as I check off the items on my to-do list today. Por que não? Eu estou no Rio!

ate pronto!
m

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