Rio Blog: April 21-27, 2008

Queridos~ I arrived home last Monday to a cold & rainy Providence day. All my local friends insist it has been sunny here for a couple of weeks, and there do appear to be actual flowers out. But there I stood freezing in my flip flops, expecting spring & getting a low-temp version of April showers. I caught a cab to my house w/ a little old lady driver – really she must have been in her 70s. I didn’t let her load the bags and gave her a good tip.

My last week in Rio was full of interesting music, starting on Monday, April 21, w/ the first full Agua no Feijão rehearsal w/ the new line-up. Agua sometimes seems more of a concept and a project now than an actual band. We have our CD to complete; we hang out @ rodas in various configurations & riff off each other; Romulo & Pablo & I plan things and play together a lot, and “the kids” (Raphael, Marcus, & Michel) show up as they can with their responsibilities. Raphael is newly in the Navy; Marcus & Michel play for a theater company. And when they can’t come Romulo finds replacements for the roda so we still have a full group.

But the original crew is like family, and Monday is a holiday so today everyone is here. & the first thing we do before playing a note is take a group photo for the CD, outdoors as it’s sunny. Well, actually everyone plays in the elevator down to meet Pablo – the last to arrive – and parade playing out the door. & it’s a very funny street scene w/ Mariana & Marcele snapping shots & everyone talking, laughing, being their usual kinetic selves. At rehearsal we go over the new tunes for the CD that are partially recorded, to figure out who will add what, and move on to other choro as well. I’ve brought a copy of my nearly-completed “Por Que Não?” and we play through it for the first time & everyone thinks it’s “legal” (cool). I wrote it for the band so we’re going to try to record it for the CD even though it’s brand new.

Tuesday morning is packed with grading & rain, and I give myself a lunch break @ the Garota da Urca – taking some pics on the way, of the construction to transform the shell of the old casino where Carmen Mirnanda used to play into a new art school & criancas playing on the beach. In the evening I meet Jorge & his wife Miriam at the Acadamia da Cachaca – a v.cool bar in upscale Leblon – for drinks & supper. We talk about lots of interesting things – politics, rock, choro, families – and Miriam makes me do most of it in Portuguese. My brain is fried by the end, but it’s, of course, v.good for me to stretch my language skills. They drop me at home & I spend the rest of the evening writing – last week’s newsletter & some unfinished poems – and organize a schedule to get everything I need to do done in the next 4 days, since the week-end will be choro 24/7, at least that’s Romulo’s plan.

Wednesday I write responses to my seminar students on their papers, send out the last Brazilian rock song-of-the-week, go to the bank, but as it’s another holiday (2 this week, and this 2nd one is St. George’s Day, also Pixinguinha’s birthday, also the official ‘National Day of Choro’) all of the stores are closed, so I can’t get any of the things on my shopping list. So I go to Praia Vermelha w/ other-Miriam, my landlady, and we laze around & chat and drink agua da coco until the sun disappears. In the evening Maizie calls to ask if I can record for the movie on Friday. Of course! And she’ll still be able to take me shopping for a dress for Brinsley’s wedding afterwards – hooray!

Thursday morning I’m off to centro for a brainstorming session w/ Paulo Sa for our planned book on choro. We meet at Carioca Station and go to the Villa-Lobos School where he’s teaching that day. I also interview him for the article I’m writing on choro & the variations in its style as it’s performed today in Rio. And as we throw ideas for the book back and forth we come up with a concept that is so novel and unexpected & will be so good that we nearly jump out of our chairs. Wow. We would never have come up w/ this idea except together, here, discussing possibilities. By time he has to go teach we have a pretty good idea of the scope of the book that I am going to pitch in the US. A fine morning’s work. We grab a quick lunch – goiaba juice & pão de queijo – it’ll be awhile before I can have them again. And then I’m off to Saara – the funky area of stalls downtown selling everything glitzy & cheap & sometimes useful – to buy some little “presentes” for my students & friends.

I cruise through the crazy bazaar-like streets, trying to look inconspicuous as this is not one of the safer areas of town, and finally find a toy & party shop that has just the things – samba whistles, little Brazilian flags, rubber bracelets that say Brasil, soccer-jersey keyrings, soccer-ball whistles, noise-makers of various shapes & sizes, siren rings – I buy lots. I catch the metro to Copacabana to stop @ Modern Sound for some CDs, and get waylaid by a gelato shop where I give in to a dish of mango & lime. As I am waiting for the bus back to Urca, I notice a “Mr. Cat” shoe store across the street, and find a cool pair of Brazilian shoes – women’s shoes are so interesting here! Arrive home tired but triumphant to find an email from Romulo asking me to send him the final version of PQN so he can print up copies for the band for Saturday’s roda. So I sit down to input the new chords, tweak the melody, and send off the maybe-final copy. I spend the rest of the evening packing.

Friday morning while making coffee I decide to do a quick solo arrangement of Asa Branca for the movie, rather than just play the melody. So I do that, stop @ the Internet cafe to print it out, & I’m off for lunch @ Maizie’s & then recording. Celso, the cameraman, and his gf Isabel arrive @ 1:00 & we eat & chat. I’ve brought a copy of my “Leave Something Unexplained” CD for Maizie & we listen to it during lunch. Isabel is such an interesting woman, who works a lot in the US giving medical seminars, and she & Celso live in a small town over an hour away in the middle of the rain forest. But as it’s also populated by lots of Cariocas on weekends and holidays it apparently has a very interesting music community, and Isabel says I must visit them when I return. And so I will.

Maestro Bernard hasn’t arrived by 2:00 and Isabel says they have to leave by 2:30, and although we are on the 17th floor, there are workers right outside the window on scaffolding creating a racket, so it is beginning to look like the recording won’t happen after all. But at exactly 2:30 the noise stops, the Maestro walks in the door and, after apologizing for lateness caused by traffic, sits down next to me as I’ve been tuning up and running through the new arrangement with Isabel singing along. Celso starts the camera, I begin to play, partway through the Maestro begins to speak, when he’s done I’m nearly at the end so I finish up. Mazie says, “Linda!” (Beautiful!) and we’re done. It’s so Brazilian – hours of prep, tons of uncertainty, and then in the blink of an eye when failure seems certain, success zips into the chair instead.

Maizie & I chat w/ Maestro Bernard over tea. He certainly has a last name & I’m sure only Mazie calls him Maestro all the time, but I love it so that’s his name for me too. & then we’re off to Niteroi for shopping & numerous errands she has to run. In the 2nd dress store we check out, the 1st dress I try on is “the one” and I get silver sandalias to go w/ it. Maizie’s errands are more complex and involve doctors, children, grandchildren, and a Home-Depot-type store, so we roll back to her apartment, where I have left my bandolim, late and tired. I walk home & manage to nearly finish packing before falling asleep.

Saturday is the last EPM, but I’m feeling a bit off center, so talk to Marcia & Samantha @ the check-in table instead of going to the 9:00 teachers’ roda, & only take my first bandolim class. There are TV crews all over the place as they’re taping a news segment on EPM that will air @ the end of May. Teachers are being interviewed right and left, and as I am sitting playing waiting for Bandão to begin, the camera crew surrounds me. “I don’t speak Portuguese well…” I begin… “You don’t have to talk, just play,” is the response. So I continue on w/ Cochichando with lights & cameras added.

Bandão is filmed & several of the teachers play solos as well. Afterwards I go to Bar do Urca w/ Jorge for lunch & we chat & drink beer sitting on the wall in the sun – such a lovely drowsy feeling. He walks me home & Romulo picks me up there w/ all of my stuff except what I will need tomorrow. We swing by Bar do Mineiro in Sta. Teresa so I can complete my last errand – buying a bottle of their fabulous ginger cachaa to share w/ Nate, Brinsley & Alex before the wedding – as they all have fond memories of it from their visits to Rio last year.

We drive to R’s house where I shuffle things around between bags-to-go & bags-to-stay, then Pablo arrives & we’re off to a roda in Laranjeiras. AnF and some subs and friends play & it’s quiet enough for me to be heard on most of the tunes. As a surprise, R has learned PQN on sax, so I pass out my copies to the guitars & cavaquinho, and my choro has its first outing @ a roda w/ two soloists. Muito legal! After roda Raphael – the non-AnF one – gives me a ride home & on the way I get a call from TaxiPaulo & as I’m standing on the corner of my street in Urca waiting to say good-bye to him, Rodrigo Zaidan – the jazz pianist whose apartment I rented in January – comes by & we catch up. I am so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open, so tired that TaxiPaulo drives me up the hill the 2 blocks to my room, so tired that I fall asleep the instant I reach my bed, so tired that it doesn’t make sense, except that tomorrow I will leave Rio and clearly some part of me would rather sleep than think about that.

But there is one more morning and when I wake up it’s sunny and I pack up my remaining belongings & head to São Salvador for the roda. R & Mariana are already there when I arrive & the great Luiz & Casio & so many others who are part of my world here. It’s a fun roda and afterwards some of us go out to lunch & then after hugs good-bye, I pick up my stuff, R takes me to the airport and I am on my way home. And now I’m here and have slipped back into my life with bright smiles of welcome, hugs, students who seem to be doing well, a big house, lots of stuff, lots of work. I’m going back to Rio soon, but for now I’m just happy to be back to the comforts – physical and spiritual – of home.

Several of you have mentioned that you don’t see how I find the time to write such detailed letters home w/ all that I am doing in Rio. It’s actually a great pleasure for me to do this. After a week of speaking at the me-Tarzan-you-Jane level (well, maybe it’s not quite that bad, but my Portuguese is still pretty basic) it’s a luxury to flex my language muscles and reflect on all that has passed. And the actual pics are, of course, a way to store so much that is beyond language. This week they’re mainly of people, as I was doing rather than reflecting. And as I finally get this letter off – because although I have been home for almost a week the story does need to have an ending – I am back with the people and language I know so well, and it almost feels like I am writing a dream. Words are all I have to lock these memories in my heart forever. So I do that, and send them on to you.

beijinhos~
m

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