The Candango

I (Mark) have been developing a journalism course here at ye olde Escola Americana de Brasília. While we've had some liftoff turbulence, we finally managed to get Volume 1.1 of our first newsletter published. It's called "The Candango," after the tall-skinny individuals pictured to the right of the logo. Candango was the epithet given to these guys and all the other gente that came to this chunk of dirt 50 years ago and built a city.

So despite some flagrant typos and design flaws, the students seemed pretty happy to see their words in print and in circulation: We've started strong with 1,000 copies, so a few our glossies may even grace the waiting-room tables dental offices in the superquadras near the school.

We don't have an online version of the magazine yet, but we're keeping a blog. If you follow the link, the most recent entry is a question the students are posing to create a "crowdsourced" article--where a net community provides all the incident reports/anecdotal info needed to make an article.

The title piece for the December/Christmas issue is going to be made entirely of comments posted to the question, "What does Christmas mean to you?" If you have a spare second or five, follow the link and leave a comment. I'm sure they'd love to hear from some of my North American compatriots.

I know we're (and by we're I mean I'm) doing a lackluster job at (a) keeping in touch, and (b) giving the play-by-play of life in the world capital for UFO enthusiasts and purveyors of magic crystals (we hear Brasília is also known for its important political role in Brazilian affairs). The aforementioned blog, coupled with a harrying work-pace has kept us hunkered down in our classrooms. But the end of this first dogged leg is near: We'll to the coast over Thanksgiving, and we'll be in San Diego as of December 19th.

We'll see you down the road.

m e v

Cicadas! Cicadas! Cicadas!

The video above depicts no important visuals.

The wavy camerawork and the audio is bent to give you all a sense of the powerful noise that is emitted by the Brazilian cicadas. They intend to leave the world soon and not without sound and fury.

Cicadas climb out of the dirt at the end of the dry season, and turn the trees in to giant, obnoxious maracas as they blow in the wind. It is a two-tone electrical chorus--our living and working and breathing is set to the soundtrack for a Hitchock film.

Oh, that their too, too solid flesh would thaw, melt and resolve itself into a dew, to litter the cragged sidewalks of Asa Sul with wings and bulging eyes and exoskeletons.

Chapadas Redux: Pirenópolis

About five months ago, we went to the Chapadas dos Veredeiros. I wrote about the nature and the braziliarities of the bohemian São Jorge. What I didn't write is that we camped with 60 other people in the grassy backyard of a bohemian Brazilian that that had the physique of the Grinch who stole Christmas, and a leathery mustachioed face.

When I awoke on the first (and last) morning in São Jorge, I circumnavigated a smattering of tents to go the bathroom. Draped across a concrete slab that led to the kitchen was a 30-something, overweight hippie, with a spilled bottle of beer which had been overturned toward its former quaffer. A small brook of beer had trickled back toward his shirt and created a yeasty rorshach test on his chest.


We had another opportunity to go to a different corner of the Brazilian highlands a couple of weeks ago; as you have surmised, we did not camp. In fact we spent a great deal of reais to stay away from the center of town, and fixed well in a pousada with AC and a swimming pool.

Pirenópolis, the colonial city in the western highlands, was at once Bohemian and classy; Apollonian and Bacchanalian; peaceful and full of nonsense.

Aside from relaxing on a hammock, or snoozing to the whirring of a 10-year-old AC, we found more waterfalls, more wildlife (Nessa saw a toucan and a number of wild parrots), we were able to more freely enjoy the world outside what's commonly called the Brasilia bubble (though I think the Brasilia-orb, or Brasilia-sphere more in keeping with its space-age dimensions). The streets were made of the sedimentary sandstone, turned up during the ground-breaking of Brasilia and moved to replace the dirt roads nearly 50 years ago.

The pictures in this post are from rustic, classy Pirenópolis and the Brazilian highland countryside.

boston

Yesterday I had a moment of serendipity, where I could feel two worlds collide over half a decade.

It was my schools talent show', and I was there to support my performers and the journalism students who were covering the show.

Toward the end one of my students got up on stage with a flame blue Takamine guitar. She was joined by another girl I didn't recognize on the piano. The song stopped me dead for a moment: "Boston," by Augustana. I hadn't really heard much about them since the days after they performed at my brother's house in Cal Poly, during his 21st birthday.

I knew they had gotten some kind of record deal and were almost famous. I looked around, eerily, as some students sang along along--especially as I remember I was in the vast red capital in the middle of Brazil.