Monthly Archives: October 2010

Arresting People In High Places

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You may have heard about the two U.S. Federal Air Marshals who apprehended a disorderly woman on a flight from Houston to Rio de Janeiro. Apparently, she had already had her share of the spirits and she went into the galley to pour herself some more, at which point the Air Marshals handcuffed her. One might chalk it up to another case of Americans saving the day…but wait, there’s more!

Upon arrival in Rio, the Marshals handed over the woman to authorities who then arrested the Marshals. The woman in cuffs, it turns out, is the wife of an important Brazilian judge. At some point in the confusion, the Marshals got away and then used alternative documents to hop another flight out of the country. Well-played…plus something we should care about called the Tokyo Convention (I missed that one) allows such agents to get away with arresting people in high places…like airplanes.

How Color Came to Lapa One Step At a Time

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In 1990, Chilean-born artist Jorge Selarón began to paint the stairs of Lapa (technically, they lie partially in Santa Tereza as well), which previously were a bit run-down and bland, as you can see from the photo above. Having moved to Rio in the early 80′s, several years went by before he started to bring life to the staircase that stops at his door step. Being constantly out of money, he had to sell his paintings (of pregnant women, his other fascination) in order to fund the work on his most ambitious project ever.

The masterpiece that carries his name already appeared in magazines such as National Geographic, Wallpaper, Time, Elle, Playboy and many other Brazilian publications, that search out the artist on an almost daily basis to interview him. Some famous music videos, as well as various Brazilian commercials, were already filmed on the stairs. Among the artists that already filmed there are U2, Baby Face, Snoop Dogg and Pharell. Among the commercials, companies such as  Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kellogs and American Express already used the stairs as a filming location.

“Tourists from all over the world that visit my work are very important, because they buy my paintings and post cards and take my story with them to foreign lands. With this money, I continue my work”, wrote Selarón on one of his postcards.

If you’d like to donate some tiles to his neverending project. Send them to the address below!

Selaron (Pinto Chileno)
Escadaria Selaron, No. 24
CEP 20241-120 Santa Tereza
Rio de Janeiro Brazil

Fazendo Uma Geral – Site News Update

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Just an update from my Sept. 10th post titled ‘Fazendo Uma Geral’.

- Yesterday, I brought the vanity URLs over so both www.eyesonbrazil.com and eyesonbrazil.com direct here to WordPress.

- The Brazilian Films List (to your left, which took over from the ‘Every Brazilian Film I’ve Ever Seen & Recommend’ post) gained a few additional details such as the year each film was made and the director who made it, along with the previous IMDB links. I’m happy to say it has also become a popular post according to my blog statistics. Current film count: 130.

- On top of being contracted by Street Smart Brazil for a weekly column, I’m also the translator now for Estilo Bay, the new Bay Area magazine on Brazilian culture I mentioned in a recent post. From time to time, I’ll also be a columnist there, too. The November issue will be out shortly so I’ll post about that when the time comes. Aside from being published a few times in Brazzil magazine several years back, which you can find on the right side column at the bottom under ‘My Non-Fiction’, I’m awaiting one of my articles to be published in the December issue of a Colombian magazine.

- Last but not least, I’m looking into new ways to bring you my content. A few of the ideas I’ve considered are audio, video and magazine format(s). What I’m after is an easily sharable way to post or perhaps a compliment to the posts themselves.

Vem Cá – Informal Phrase

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Most of us who are sufficiently versed in Portuguese know that the phrase “vem cá” means “come here” (though, technically, I suppose it should be as a command, ie “venha cá” ). There’s a second meaning which can be loosely translated into English as “hold on”, “wait just a second”, “listen up” or even “pay attention”, all of them serving as a way to call attention to something you wish to say.

Ex. “Vem cá, o que está acontecendo aqui?”
Ex. “Hold on a sec., what’s going on here?”

So how do you tell the difference between someone wanting you to come closer or wanting you to listen up? Aside from understanding the context, the informal usage has a slightly different intonation than the literal one.

In Portuguese, a substitute for “vem cá”, in the informal sense, is the phrase “olha só”. Some people might have an aversion to this secondary usage and may respond by saying “Vem cá pra onde? Eu não estou aqui já!?” (Come where? Am I not already here?).

The New Columnist at Street Smart Brazil

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Just an announcement. I’m excited to say I’ve been contracted out to Street Smart Brazil’s blog as a weekly columnist where I’ll be writing about Brazilian culture. That means I’ll be linking to those posts from here every week, to tell you all about the newest post!

And for anyone in the SF Bay Area who is looking for Portuguese lessons here or even via Skype, get in touch with Luciana, the owner of Street Smart Brazil at info@streetsmartbrazil.com (or via her site).

Here’s my first column!

It All Started With a Discount Glance

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At Brazzil, there’s a good article on some differences between Brazil and the US and one of the points touched upon is PDA (public displays of affection). Here’s what the writer has to say about that…

“Likewise, public affection is the everyday norm. Although most often practiced by the young, it is not their exclusive domain. Few couples refrain from a romantic moment: witnessing the likes of rainbows in waterfalls or seaside sunrises.

One night I went to the movies at the local mall and discovered a discount promotion. My wife and I could obtain half-price tickets if we kissed in front of the ticket counter.

I learned discount kissing was a success, as it wasn’t restricted to this one mall. Perhaps movie theaters were assisting in the flowering of new relationships by encouraging the people at the back of the line to enjoy enthusiastic bursts of romance. I’m still wondering if the promotion was endorsed by the Valentine’s Day committee or the numerous chocolate stores.” – Source (more here)

Confusing Terms – Differences/2 for 1

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I’m going to combine a Differences post with a 2 for 1 post (both under the Portuguese category). While understanding the difference between the Portuguese words might be no sweat for Brazilians, I’ve been forced to throw them in the ‘confusing words’ pile (where the ‘camisa vs camiseta‘  and ‘troco vs trocado‘ pairs sometimes reside) for far too long. It’s time to stop confusing the terms (at least personally).

Series vs Sitcom

Série (f) – TV series

Seriado (m) – TV series/Sitcom/Serial

As in the US, a sitcom has no defined ending. An easy-ish way to remember the difference is ‘série’ looks like ‘series’ and ‘seriado’ looks like ‘serial’ (even though the last term isn’t used that much anymore).

Shirt vs T-shirt

Camisa (f) – Shirt/Dress shirt (buttons)

Camiseta (f) – T-shirt/Undershirt (casual)

I swore I already wrote about the difference but upon double-checking, I guess not. To not confuse these two, try to remember that t-shirt is a longer word than shirt, just as camiseta is longer than camisa. Also, one should note that jersey (used for sports) can be defined with either word or even jérsei, but it’s more likely you’ll see camisa used for jersey.

Of course, if you look at the comments, you’ll start to understand why some of these terms are confusing…