Apparently, in Febuary of 1996, Michael recorded the song “They Don’t Care About Us” in Pelourinho with the participation of Olodum and his friend Spike Lee directing. Judging by most of his outfits, I would have guessed it was in the late 80′s.
Sure, it’s a cool song and even better with Olodum coming through on the drums but there’s something strange about a former black man, who millions of people adore, singing “they don’t really care about us”.
[Photo: Calila das Mercês - caliladasmerces@ymail.com]
Do you want flowers, Do you want songs?
by Castro Alves
Translated by me
DO YOU WANT FLOWERS? Do you want songs?
How one must give them to you if mourning
I only have them in my chest?
Do you want lights and harmonies?
In vain…just agonies
My lute wailed…
Damsel! Outside of madness
To ask the sweet typhoon,
To the dead happy song,
To search for the flower of the kiosks
Among the cypruses, the forests
Which overshadow the funereal floor.
However listen to my advice…
Ask for a mirror from Venice…
Gaze at your face…and you will see
One of the most beautiful paintings
Which — men would not know how to make,
Which — two alike God did not do.
In your beautiful mouth
You will see a pretty rose
Almost closed while smiling
And, like shining drops,
The pearls of your teeth
In the breast of the sparkling flower.
The Oriental perfume
— When you pray innocently —
One cradles in your lips.
And in your breast, one trembles,
You have the Poetry, one moans,
You have the harmony of the Heavens.
Do you want to see Paradise?
Reveal your lips…A laugh
Come show us Eden…
Sing!… And the sacred hymns
You will see in Heaven
Falling stars listen to you.
You have the night by the strings
Where the breeze in arguing themes
Howls… dies of slowness.
They are more than stars — shining
Your fascinating eyes,
— Beautiful verses of love…
And yet you ask of me a song?!…
Break the lyre the saintly Bardo
Upon seeing your smile…
Rip the canvass Rafael…
Fídias snaps the chisel…
God trembles of love in Heaven.
(The original as a photo)
The original (Queres flores? Queres cantos?) in plain writing is here.
Castro Alves was a Brazilian poet best remembered for his abolitionist and republican poems, and is considered one of the most important Brazilian poets of the 19th century. Alves was born on the Cabaceiras farm close to the town of Curralinho in Bahia which was renamed to the city of Castro Alves in honor of the poet.
In 1862, he entered the Law School of Recife, was involved in an affair with Portuguese actress Eugênia Câmara and wrote his first abolitionist poems: “Os Escravos” (The Slaves) and “A Cachoeira de Paulo Afonso” (Paulo Afonso’s Waterfall), reading them out loud in public events in defense of the abolitionist cause. Even though many Brazilians stood up against it at that time, slavery in Brazil was not officially ended until 1888, when Princess Isabel, daughter of Dom Pedro II, declared it extinct by means of the Lei Áurea (Golden Law).
Poetry
Alves’s work stands in the late-Romantic aesthetic and is deeply influenced by the work of the French poet Victor Hugo in a movement called condoreirismo, which is marked by the introspection of the Romantic period with a social and humanitarian concern. These concerns led him to the incipient Abolitionism and Republicanism, of whose causes he was one of the foremost representatives.
His poetry is more optimistic in tone than early romantic poets, and is marked by more sensual and physical images than is usual to the Romantic Aesthetic. He was not attached to the (sometimes official) indigenism shown by José de Alencar or Gonçalves Dias, nor had the mal-du-siècle aesthetic of Álvares de Azevedo. As a result of this, his work is usually considered to be late-romantic, tending to the later Realist movement.
Among his best known works are: “Espumas Flutuantes” (Floating Foams), “Gonzaga ou A Revolução de Minas” (Gonzaga or the Revolution of Minas), “Cachoeira de Paulo Afonso”, “Vozes D’África” (Voices from Africa), “O Navio Negreiro” (The Slave Ship).
“PORTO ALEGRE – Threatened by extinction, the margay – also known as the gato-maracajá – appeared on Avenida Bento Gonçalves, one of the main throroughfares of Porto Alegre (POA), and quickly became a celebrity. Scared by the gathering of people, the animal was rescued by fire department, although soon enough it should be sent back to its habitat.” – Source
This is just the first little paragraph and already they slipped in little words to guide our perception. In the last sentence, we see the word ‘rescued’ and the phrase ‘sent back to its habitat’ yet no one wonders if where it was found is/was its natural habitat. I wouldn’t go as far as to say we are the ones who should be in trees hiding from the animals but I do think it’s a shame to kill off any species. I just wanted to give a mini-rant for this mini-animal.
The Margay, or Gato-Maracajá as it’s known in Portuguese, is a spotted cat native to Central and South America. It is a solitary and nocturnal animal that prefers remote sections of the rainforest. Although it was once believed to be vulnerable to extinction, the IUCN now lists it as “Near Threatened”. It roams the rainforests from Mexico to Argentina.
Physical Characteristics
The Margay can weigh about 6.6–20 lbs, have a body length of 18 to 32 in and a tail length of 13 to 20 in. It is very similar to the larger Ocelot, although the head is a bit shorter, the tail and legs are longer, and the spotted pattern on the tail is different. Most notably the Margay is a much more skillful climber than its relative, and it is sometimes called the Tree Ocelot because of this skill. Whereas the Ocelot mostly pursues prey on the ground, the Margay may spend its entire life in the trees, leaping after and chasing birds and monkeys through the treetops. Indeed, it is one of only two cat species with the ankle flexibility necessary to climb head-first down trees (the other being the Clouded Leopard). Its ankles can turn up to 180 degrees, it can grasp branches equally well with its fore and hind paws, and it is able to jump considerable distances. The Margay has been observed to hang from branches with only one foot. The Margay can jump vertically 18 feet and jump horizontally 23 feet.
Here’s a video of a Margay ‘doing Parkour‘ as one commentor stated.
As I rarely do, I would like to share a different kind of Portuguese with you. You see, the Mozambican Portuguese is quite different in some aspects (using dialect loanwords, for example) but on the other hand, it’s easy to see how it falls under the Continental variety too. I have a long-time friend who lived there for three years and came back speaking it, which was interesting to see because she didn’t speak any Portuguese when she left the States.
Here’s a project coming out of Niassa, the northern most region of Mozambique, which was featured on PBS (see the 11-minute video here), originally aired in mid-2008. It’s partly in English, part dialect and part Portuguese (all with subtitles).
“Harnessing their popularity to fight poverty, Massukos make music that is not only phenomenally beautiful but also a powerful force for change” – Rita Ray
Massukos are considered national treasures in their native country, renowned both for their stunning music and the humanitarian work that they do. Originating from Niassa in northern Mozambique, one of the poorest parts of Africa, Massukos use their music to deliver simple life-saving messages about hygiene, sanitation and HIV/AIDS.
The leader of Massukos, Feliciano dos Santos, is also the director and founder of the NGO Estamos – in April 2008 he was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize – the world’s largest environmental prize for grassroots activites. Massukos are making their mark internationally with their new album Bumping, attracting rave reviews for it’s “infectious” “ebullient” and “uplifting” sounds.”
To finish it off, I’ll post a cool song that Feliciano’s band Massukos sings called Niassa…which is in Portuguese.
“In Portuguese, “amado” means “beloved,” and in more than a score of novels, the Brazilian writer Jorge Amado made clear his eternal passion for Salvador da Bahia, the city that took him in as a teenage boarding student and became his home. Salvador, in turn, loved him back, and even now, more than six years after his death, Amado’s exuberant spirit, aesthetic and characters seem to permeate the streets of the place he described both as “the most mysterious and beautiful of the world’s cities” and “the most languid of women.
For visitors keen to experience those tropical mysteries, Amado went so far as to suggest an itinerary in his novel, “Tereza Batista: Home From the Wars.” He wanted tourists to see not just “our beaches, our churches embroidered with gold, the blue Portuguese ceramic tiles, the Baroque, the picturesque popular festivals and the fetishist ceremonies,” but also “the putridity of the slum houses on stilts and the whorehouses.”
That kind of dichotomy was typical of Amado, who, especially in his early years, tended to see everything as pairs of opposites: good and evil, black and white, sacred and profane, rich and poor. He even managed to impose that Manichean vision on the geography of Salvador, scorning Rua Chile, then the main commercial street of the upper city, and its well-to-do clientele in favor of the lower city and the port, where sailors, longshoremen, beggars, prostitutes and grifters saturated him in “the greasy black mystery of the city of Salvador da Bahia.”
- Source (more here)
“Often called “the capital of black Brazil,” this tropical city swelled with civic pride last month when the local Olodum Afro drum corps played with Paul Simon before a huge crowd in Central Park in New York.
But back home, recognition is not always so easy.
This time last year, Olodum’s cultural director, Eusebio Cardoso Ferreira, was recovering from multiple shotgun wounds inflicted by a military policeman.
“Eusebio had packed a suitcase and was on his way to London,” said Alan Trajano, a church human rights lawyer familiar with the case. “But the policeman saw a black man with a bag and assumed he had stolen it from a tourist.”
On one hand, Salvador has recently seen a renaissance in Afro-Brazilian culture. Under coconut palms on the beaches, women in turbans sell snacks whose recipes of palm oil, okra and shrimp trace back to West Africa. The city’s most widely followed religion is candomble, whose gods and Yoruba chants first came from 17th-century Dahomey. At carnival time, Salvador’s cobblestone streets reverberate with African drums and samba lyrics composed in homage to ancient empires in Mali, Angola and the Congo. Council Overwhelmingly White
But in the spheres of civil rights and political power, the lot of Salvador’s blacks seems frozen in amber.
Although 80 percent of Salvador’s population is black or of mixed race, the city’s Mayor and all but three members of the 35-member city council are white. On the state level, the racial equation is the same. The Governor of Bahia State is white and the congressional delegation looks as though it just stepped off a plane from Portugal, Brazil’s former colonial power.”
- Source (more here. Article from the year 1991)
Vatapá
Vatapá (vat-a-pah) is a Brazilian dish made from bread, shrimp, coconut milk and palm oil mashed into a creamy paste. This food is very popular in the North and Northeast, but it is more typical in the northeastern state of Bahia where it is commonly eaten with acarajé, although vatapá is often eaten with white rice in other regions of Brazil.
Alternatively, the shrimp can be replaced with ground tuna, chicken, or turkey, among other options.
Acarajé
Acarajé is a dish found in Nigerian and Brazilian cuisine. It is traditionally encountered in Brazil’s northeastern state of Bahia, especially in the city of Salvador, often as street food, and is also found in most parts of Nigeria and Ghana.
It is made from peeled black-eyed peas formed into a ball and then deep-fried in dendê (palm oil). It is served split in half and then stuffed with vatapá and caruru – spicy pastes made from shrimp, cashews, palm oil and other ingredients. A vegetarian version is typically served with hot peppers and green tomatoes. In Nigeria, it is commonly eaten for breakfast with gruel made from millet.
For more on acarajé, see this NYT article.
In case you saw the article I posted titled “A day and a half in Salvador”, and happen to be more visually oriented, I suggest these great videos on the sights and sounds of Salvador. The videos include notes in English on the location of each sight shown, time stamp and extra info. and they also feature an added bonus of a good trilha sonora (soundtrack) which plays in the background. These are the kinds of intro videos I would make if I were there.
