Vacation: Status Report

So, I've figured something interesting out about my blog:

It doesn't get read unless I give someone the link directly. Therefore, I have no readers unless I update and hand people the link, therefore, it takes effort to be read. That's kind of lame, really. Where's my unconditional love and affection? All in due time, I'm sure.

Anyhow, how goes my vacation thus far, you're asking? Very well, thank you. Let me give you an update:

I arrived around the beginning of July. Independence Day was not celebrated. I didn't particularly care. I went to several shows and clubs in Rio, got very wasted (legally, mind you) and was probably overcharged several times for cab fares. I also went to the beach during the day, and spent a lot of time wondering how nice Morcheeba plays next to the beach, and how right Douglas Adams was about beach houses.

Oh, by the way, about shows, I have to relate this story:

So there I was, at the show at one "Circo Voador"(or the Flying Circus, whether it's related to the Monty Python show is unknown. I would wager against.) watching the sambão band (sambão is sort of like a samba/hip-hop/rock fusion) "MonoBloco", who rock hard. I got thirsty, and went to get myself a drink. At the bar, I overheard two gringos, English by the accent, having the following dialogue over two caipirinhas, a cocktail made with cachaça, ice, limes, and sugar.

Gringo 1: God, this shit Brazilian liquor. I can't believe they have this swill.
Gringo 2: Yeah, yeah. Hey amigo! (gesticulates wildly to the bartender) More sugar please. Açucar por favor.

(Note, most bartenders at large events and popular clubs speak at least enough English to ply their trade. Gringo 2's accent, also, was more horrendous than I can simulate in text. Also, it's considered extremely bad manners to swamp your caipirinha in sugar, as these kids were about to do.)

Now, understand that there's a certain something about the Brazilian character that makes most Brazilians to be utter assholes when we're drunk. Asshole isn't really the right word. Kind of a mean-hearted trickster, minus malicious intent. The word in Portuguese is sacana. By that point, I was feeling more or less sacana, and I felt like I should give those boys a shock to their system. I turned to gringoes 1 and 2, and said in my most perfected ESL accent: "Excyoose me! I am seeing that you are speaking English, yes? I am seeing that you are drinkando caipirinhas. How do yoo enjoy ower nacional drinque?"

The gringos said something like "Oh! (shit!) Uh! It's good! Great! Excellent! We love Rio! Beautiful city! Bye!" and were out of there like whores at a Baptist picnic.

The other day, someone asked me if I thought of myself more as a Brazilian, or more as an American. I think it's an interesting question of identity. I grew up in the States, but I always thought of myself as a Brazilian, because it was one of the things I had that made me different from my peers, and I liked that. Likewise, when I'm in the Brazil, I easily slip into being the gringo. I guess the answer I gave my friend down here was that I was always what the public wasn't, always a little bit the outsider. I said, "Eu sempre sou o que não é." Translated literally, that means "I always am what isn't." I thought that was an interesting paradox I made for myself.

I've been going to poetry readings, and I'm due to present something to the crowd there as part of an open mic. Which, in reality, if I've been invited to come, doesn't make exactly so much of an open mic as it is an obligatory mic. Oh well. I intend to read "Unsaid", along with "Shout Out" by Sekou Sundiata. The rest of my work isn't really coffeehouse material, in my opinion. Much less Brazilian coffee-house material.

Speaking of which, Brazilian coffee is the only coffee which I can take black.

I went to a literary festival in a city south of Rio called Paraty. It was fantastic, I got to meet a ton of authors, and I was sneered at by Toni Morisson. Sneered at by Toni fucking Morisson! I think that's like being raised to knighthood in the order of lit-snobs. I will win the Nobel Prize some day, and I too, will sneer at aspiring writers.

I'm an intern now, as well, at a publisher called Casa da Palavra. My work consists of reading books and telling people whether or not I think they're okay. Life is good.