Category Archives: Rio de Janeiro

“Olha o Globo!” – Brothers, Biscuits & Beaches

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(with Two Brothers in the background)

Ask any beach-going Brazilian that has been to Rio de Janeiro what images come to mind when they think of Rio and I’d bet Biscoito Globo is one of them. The famous doughnut-shaped powder biscuits are as common a sight as the sunbathers in Ipanema applauding the beautiful sunsets, silhouetted by Two Brothers hill. Speaking of brothers, three from São Paulo deserve some applause, too, as they are responsible for another pleasing sight, one that can be sweet, like catching some rays, or salty, like the sea itself.

The brothers’ success lies in the simplicity of their product. Let’s take a closer look:

  • Two flavors – Sweet or salty
  • Easy to recognize – Always the same packaging
  • Easy to open – Good for kids (though bad for those who want to close it, meaning you should eat them all)
  • Strictly word of mouth – No advertising costs and savings passed on to the customer
  • Great with another favorite – Often sold with soft-drink Matte-Leão (and vendors wear Matte-Leão shirts)
  • Easy to remember – Globo is a name everyone knows

The rest is history (or, at least the next part is)…

History

According to the Biscoito Globo site, it all started in 1953 when, after their parents separated, the three Ponce brothers went to live with their cousin who had a bakery in Ipiranga, in São Paulo. It was there that they learned to make powder biscuits with their cousin, which were sold on the streets of downtown São Paulo.

In 1954, taking advantage of a large religious conference in Rio de Janeiro, the brothers decided to sell their biscuits in the carioca capital. With their recipe for success, the Ponce brothers foresaw that, given the biscuits characteristics, Rio de Janeiro would be the ideal market for what they were selling.

The powder biscuit was given the name Globo in honor of the bakery contracted to make them in Botafogo. The year was 1955 and the biscuits were sold in the Globo bakery and in seven others, owned by the same people. Realizing the large demand for them, the Ponce brothers started to sell them to other bakery chains and in 1963, they formed a partnership with a Portuguese baker, an expert in breads.

Benefits

There are other positive aspects that accompany a bag of Biscoito Globo, such as the fact that it’s perfect for making one’s stomach believe it’s fuller than it is. After all, who wants to swim on a full stomach? Other associated benefits mean the customer receives something that is low in calories, low in fat, without neither coloring nor preservatives.

The biscuit vendors are called ‘ambulantes‘ and they can buy a package for 60 cents then turn around and sell it for an average price of R$1 on the beach. A pretty good deal where everyone walks away happy. Since the famous snacks don’t contain the aforementioned preservatives, they aren’t sold to the supermarkets, meaning the customers must seek out the individual vendors if they want to get their hands on the biscuits. On the beaches of Rio, that’s not a hard thing to do because the vendors are omnipresent, the packaging is unique (save for a few imitators), and the holler is the same…”Olha o Globo!”

Originally written for Street Smart Brazil.

Bullet Train May Carry Mail, Ease Traffic

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“The Ministry of Communications stated today that the government is studying the possibility that the Mail and Telegraph Company (ECT) may become a fixed client of the bullet-train that will connect the cities of Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo and Campinas.

According to the ministry, the minister Paulo Bernardo already solicited the new president of Correios, Wagner Pinheiro, to start talks with the National Agency of Land Transport (ANTT) to discuss the project. The minister estimates that close to 80% of Correios’ service traffic is concentrated in the metropolitan areas of Rio and São Paulo. The expectation is that, with Correios having a dedicated wagon for correspondences and parcels, the State can take a large quantity of trucks off the Via Dutra.

The minister believes that the anticipated contract with Correios could guarantee investors that the bullet-train could start right off with a fixed client. The transport of small parcels had already been announced by ANTT as an alternative for entrepreneurs to obtain extra revenues, which do not include direct compensation by means of passenger transport tariffs and economic exploitation of the stations.

The bullet-train auction, also known as the High Velocity Train (TAV), will occur in April. The estimated investment needed is R$33.1 billion, with a maximum timeframe of five years for construction and 40 years for service exploitation.” – Valor Online

TEDx takes place in Rio de Janeiro on Feb. 15th

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On the 15th of February, Rio de Janeiro will play host to TEDx. For an entire day, cariocas interested in subjects such as health, transportation, education, culture, arts, design, science, technology and sustainability, will be able to share in the experience “in TED style”, as the event’s site says. Like the other TEDx events in Brazil that have come and gone (in São Paulo, the Amazon and most recently, in Porto Alegre), TEDxRio is an independently organized event that will follow TED principles. – Terra

TEDxRio

Welcome to Rio de Janeiro, USA

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“He extracted his first million from lawless goldmines deep in the Amazon jungle and went on to become Brazil’s richest man, a smooth-talking mining and energy tycoon who keeps a Mercedes-Benz SLR in his sitting room as a symbol of his $27bn (£17bn) empire.

Now, with Rio de Janeiro gearing up for the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics, Brazilian entrepreneur Eike Batista has set himself two new goals: to help transform his adoptive beachside home into one of the world’s most dynamic and affluent cities, and to become the richest man on Earth.

“Mister Carlos Slim has to invent a new race kart to catch up,” said the 53-year-old, referring to the Mexican telecoms billionaire rated by Forbes as the world’s wealthiest person. Batista is currently eighth.

Batista’s companies, controlled by a holding group called EBX – the X a reference to multiplying profit – plan to pump nearly £13bn into Rio state over the next two years, constructing ports and factories, and drilling for oil.

“If I look at Rio 10, 15 years out it is going to be unbelievable,” he said, describing the city’s future as a mix of California, New York and Houston, combining stunning beaches and natural beauty with financial clout and ultra-modern architecture.

He is also working on plans to build, from scratch, “a super-modern, digital city” for about 250,000 people. The city, to be erected around150 miles from the state capital and designed by the Brazilian architect and urban planner Jaime Lerner, will be called Cidade X.

The billionaire’s Rio projects involve cleaning up the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon, running a luxury cruise ship for tourists, revamping the city’s marina and restoring a traditional hotel, which like much of Rio has fallen on hard times in recent decades as growing violence triggered a crippling economic exodus.” – Guardian (more)



Brasileirinho – Choro Documentary

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Tonight, I saw a musical documentary on choro music, something I had briefly read about here and there but never really had any true exposure to. I can say I have an appreciation for it now thanks to Brasileirinho, as the documentary is titled. Here’s the description from the official site…

“Brasileirinho is a 90-min musical documentary film about Choro, the first genuinely Brazilian urban music. It was back in the late 19th century in Rio de Janeiro when Brazilian musicians started to blend European melodies, Afro-Brazilian rhythms and the melancholic interpretation of the Brazilian Indians’ music to create Choro. Choro is credited as being the first musical expression of Brazil’s melting pot and had a prominent place in the development of Brazil’s cultural identity. Choro remained a major popular music style until the 1920s, leading directly into Samba and later to Bossa Nova. After a slight decline in popularity, Choro music has made a remarkable comeback over the past few decades.

The film remembers the history but shows, above all, a colorful picture of Choro’s vitality today. The guiding line of the film is the combo “Trio Madeira Brasil” composed of three of Brazil’s outstanding Choro musicians. During a “Roda de Choro”, a traditional Brazilian kind of private jam session, the Trio brings up a concert project. During these sessions or at their homes, some of the most interesting Choro musicians play and remember key events in the history of this Brazilian urban music. A look into a Choro workshop with over 450 participants of all ages illustrates the off-hand genuine Brazilian way to play. “Playing” interviews with well-known Samba and Bossa Nova artists like Zezé Gonzaga, Elza Soares and Guinga illustrate the reciprocal inspiration with Samba and Bossa Nova music. A final show of the “Trio Madeira Brasil” with their guests in one of Rio’s traditional music halls show once more the opulence of rhythms and melodies in Choro that has evolved over the past 130 years into a fascinating form of modern tropical sound.”

On the official site, there’s an interview with the filmmaker, Mika Kaurismäki where he talks about how he came up with the idea for the documentary. It turns out he is also behind another great Brazilian musical documentary.

“Question. When and how did you get the idea for the film? Can you remember when you heard Choro for the first time?

MK: I had made another documentary about Brazilian music, “Moro no Brasil” before this one. It happened that I was in Lausanne, Switzerland, I think it was in May 2003 at the Swiss premiere of “Moro no Brasil” and, after the film, there was this Q&A session. One gentleman – obviously a Choro fan – asked me why I didn’t have Choro in my film. I tried to explain that there is so much music in Brazil that it was impossible to include everything in one film. I said that I liked Choro very much, but “Moro no Brasil” was more about samba and that Choro deserved a film of its own. The gentleman said that he’d produce that film. And that was what actually happened; Marco Forster, who had never produced a film before, kept his word and we started to develop the film.”

More Info

Official Site
IMDB

Winning Museum Design Needs Help

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Many were saddened when Rio’s Club Help closed and, likewise, many were delighted to hear news of the museum that would take its place. The Museum of Image and Sound (MIS), no less…just what Rio needs (especially when it already has an MIS in their downtown area). I’m sure the residents of Rio’s estimated 1,000 favelas were dreaming about such a day. The irony is that the winning image by a New York architecture firm is just so-so. That is high praise considering the other possible designs.

“The cost of the museum project, which will include extensive external access ramps and windows showing different angles of the Copacabana beach, is estimated at 65 Million Brazilian Real (35 Million US Dollar), including 50 Million paid by the local government. The rest comes from private sponsors including the Roberto Marinho Foundation.”

I wonder what’s the next silly project…

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