Bring on the Olympic Sailing Events!

The excitement that all of Búzios felt at the possibility that the Olympic sailing events would be torn from Rio's grasp and staged out here in our clean, unpolluted waters was contagious. After all, we were told that even the great and powerful United States Olympic Committee had requested the change of venue! Wow, now that's support a little town can get behind. Even Mark and I felt the buzz, since our terrace sits smack dab in what would be the front row. We began to draw up lists of people to invite, and in what order: family first, friends next, acquaintances last.

Windsurf event in front of our house

Sailing event in front of our house

But the momentary excitement was just that — momentary. It's taken a while for the penny to drop, but we're all pretty sure that it ain't gonna happen. Rio will never allow the recently-documented problems of pollution, bacteria, viruses and e-coli to come between it and the stupendous opportunity it has to strut its stuff on the world stage. There is not a chance in hell that Rio will let itself be robbed of images like these:

 










So was the idea of bringing the sailing events to Búzios just a publicity stunt? Is the hashtag #velaemBuzios a wink-wink-nudge-nudge joke? It does look that way. Búzios has the clean waters, but it doesn't have the infrastructure needed to accommodate all the sailing vessels with their attendant equipment, or house the athletes, the coaches, the technical support staffs, the medical staffs, the press corps, the spectators, etc. The idea was floated, everyone got into a tizzy, stickums were slapped on surfaces all over town — and the idea has fizzled.

But don't you think that a few new Olympic events will have to be  developed with host city Rio de Janeiro in mind? Put Jérôme Valcke in charge of it, he's not doing anything, and he can even steal my ideas: Sailing in Sewage, Canoeing through Corpses, and Rowing in Rubbish. Triathlon Trash has a certain ring to it as well. Oh, well, I guess Mark and I can throw out those guest lists we were drawing up!

24 Days to the World Cup

One fine specimen, this Fred . . .

It’s official! The Brazilian 2014 World Cup soccer team has been selected! World Cup fever — always high in Brazil  — is now in overdrive, given that this year it's Brazil that's hosting. It's all World Cup, all the time, on television, on the radio, and splashed in newspaper headlines. But the question begs, at a mere 24 days to opening day, will this super-young, super-cute (if not outright handsome, I mean just look at Fred!) team have any stadiums to play in? Will their hotels be ready? On second thought, forget the Brazilian team, which will be as coddled as a team has ever been. For that matter, forget all the soccer teams, because FIFA has special, hand-picked employees in charge of the players. It’s the fans we should be worrying about. Will visiting fans, both foreign and national, be able to negotiate the airports? Will they find their way around the cities? Will they be okay?



One angry Blatter

FIFA has been badmouthing Brazil for months now, at the same time that they are apparently enjoying the highest profits EVER from a World Cup event. Life is full of such contradictions, right? FIFA’s president, the grumpy (but rich) Joseph Blatter, has harsh criticisms about all the stadium delays (four out of twelve stadiums have still not been completed), and he has gone as far as to blame these delays on the "sluggishness of the Brazilians." He really hit hard on this issue at a recent press conference, particularly since Brazil had — count them — seven years to prepare. Okay, hard not to concede his point. Blatter also criticized the lack of safety for the workers at the various stadium construction sites, and made sure to relieve FIFA of any responsibility for the ten deaths that have occurred. (By the way, have we heard one word, one whisper of a possible criticism on FIFA’s part about the 1,200 workers that have already died while building stadiums in Qatar for the 2022 World Cup?)

So where are we? We’ve got FIFA withholding 7% of ticket sales because they have no idea if the seats they’d like to sell will actually exist. (Installation, or rather, non-installation of seats seems to be the abiding problem at the four incomplete stadiums.) We’ve got FIFA unable to conduct the usual and necessary tests of lights, cables, communication setups, Internet, security preparations, food services, bathrooms — in short, everything that has to be tested before opening to the public. FIFA is livid. Want to move on to airports? We’ve got some beautiful new terminals, but if you peek behind the curtains you see roofs that leak, air conditioning not yet working, unfinished parking garages, no lobby seating areas (what is it with Brazil and seating?) . . .

One of Brazil’s most respected and award-winning journalists, Míriam Leitão, wrote a scathing article in last Sunday’s Globo. She wrote that a country should be going after two wins when hosting a World Cup, the game championship itself and the unparalleled opportunity of being a showcase to the world. Míriam gave sharp and well-reasoned opinions as to why she thinks Brazil has already lost its showcase opportunity, and is now merely "patching up its damaged image." The best Brazil can hope for now, she continued, is the actual World Cup trophy. That was one depressing article. But who knows? Maybe Brazil will actually pull it off. Just a few more days and the whole world will have the answer.

No stadium seating? There's plenty in the lakes!

And even though Brazil has not yet f@#&ed up the 2014 World Cup, people are already writing off the 2016 Summer Olympics as a terrible disaster. Rio de Janeiro is waaaay behind in its preparations. Just as one example, one of the solemn promises Rio made to the Olympic Committee was that it would clean up the lakes in Barra da Tijuca and Jacarepagua (where most of the Olympic events will take place). But these projects haven’t even begun. We’re 806 days out, and word is that even if they were to begin working today they wouldn’t be finished until after the Olympics. Here we go again.

That Coveted Garage Parking Space

Mark and I used to belong to an organization in New York called Audience Extras. For a small annual fee we had access to a wide choice of theatrical events for just $3 apiece on a last-minute basis. Seats that would otherwise have been vacant got filled and we got to go to the theater at low cost. It was a real win-win. We saw innumerable shows through Audience Extras, very few of which either of us remembers. What we do remember, though, are the venues, because outside of a few theaters actually on Broadway, most of the plays on the Audience Extras list were in interesting off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway spaces. They were mounted in drafty old factories, in churches, in no-longer-used schools, and in rooms hidden away on the upper floors of Lower East Side commercial buildings. Sometimes our seats were right on stage, sometimes we had to stand around the edges of the set. But the play that Mark and I just saw this past weekend in Rio de Janeiro wins the prize for the most unforgettable venue.

Garagem (Garage) tells the story of a guy who loses his job and his marriage, and finds himself with no place to live. While going through his papers he finds the deed to a second garage space in his name in the condominium where his ex-wife still lives, and decides to move down to his space and live there. What really makes the play is that it’s set in a real garage, specifically on Garage Level 3 of Rio Sul shopping center. As it happens, this particular section of Garage Level 3 is slated to become part of the shopping center’s movie complex, but the shopping center agreed to turn it over to the play’s producers for two months. The producers mounted a large "set" with enough room to park 15 cars, along with an elevator and 80 seats for the audience. This was seriously cool.

There was a time when stories were set in hotel lobbies, because that was where people "milled about" and crossed paths with others (Grand Hotel comes to mind). Dining rooms were also good meeting places (Separate Tables) as were train stations (Brief Encounter). But this fresh idea of using a condominium garage as the place where people come and go and interact is as original as it seems obvious. Once I dismissed the thought that crossed my mind a few times about the slight danger of our sitting right in the midst of fast-moving cars ("Mark, what if the brakes fail tonight?!") I was able to get into the story. Billed as a comedy — and indeed there were plenty of garage and parking jokes — the play turned fairly tragic at the end. (However, as a former New York co-op board president I had to appreciate how the building’s resident manager finally outmaneuvered the poor guy in the garage space.)

Just get the car and go . . . but  imagine living here!

This has to have been the easiest cultural event we’ve ever attended in Rio. In a city where parking spaces are getting harder and harder to come by, there sure was plenty of parking! After the last bows were taken, Mark and I blithely strolled up to Garage Level 4 and drove home. Too bad the plan is to turn this great theater space over to enlarge an already too large movie complex. But I’m glad to have seen Garagem before it moves to São Paulo, into some parking garage there.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TROPICAL DAYDREAMS! Wednesday marks my two-year blog anniversary. When I started blogging, I thought I would do it for just one year, yet here I am at the two-year mark. One year more?

The Papal Visit

By now everyone knows that Rio de Janeiro was the city chosen to host this year’s Vatican World Youth Day, and that Pope Francis chose to attend the event for his first trip abroad as Pope. As I watched the television coverage I was struck by the amazing "pop star" side of the Pope’s visit, and couldn’t help but see a similarity between Pope Francis and another man named Francis, Francis Albert Sinatra. (It’s a bit of a stretch, but bear with me.) Both men are of Italian heritage. They were both born in the month of December. One was affectionately called St. Francis, Our Father of Song, and the other became Pope Francis, the Holy Father. And both were endowed from on high with charm, charisma, and an uncanny ability to make people swoon. Both became pop celebrities almost overnight.

Francis #1

Francis #2

Really, it’s the screaming and the swooning that most resonated with me. The World Youth Day event was meant to have a solemn and serious side, but this new Pope knows how to work a crowd. Of course this is not what was reported in the so-called First World press. Last Wednesday The New York Times ran an article, Missteps by Brazil Mar Visit by Pope, which highlighted the faulty organization, the tension among the various authorities and the breakdown of Rio’s public transportation system. The Chicago Sun Times, still smarting from Chicago’s loss to Rio as host of the 2016 Olympics, ran a front page story not about the Youth Day event, but about the violent street demonstrations contemporaneous with it, under the headline We Lost to This? Low blow, Chicago. How quickly you’ve forgotten the 1968 Democratic National Convention. What these and other articles completely missed, though, is the stunning emotional impact the event had on Brazilians of all faiths.



I’m no Pollyanna, there’s no question but that the organization had been faulty. And fingers have only begun to point. The Vatican pointed to the city authorities in Rio, Rio’s mayor pointed to the World Youth Day organizers, Rio State’s governor pointed to Rio’s mayor, and round and round they went. Well, they can point fingers all they want, truth is everybody who had any part in the event’s organization deserves a part of the blame. But the challenges were enormous, and in some cases unexpected, like the rain and chilly temperatures. In fact, the challenges were much greater than they will be for the 2014 World Cup (which at least spreads the headaches around to other cities in Brazil) and the 2016 Olympics. The number of expected visitors for those two events is dwarfed by the three million visitors who flocked to Rio from all over Brazil and from 180 countries for this World Youth Day. The Ministry of Tourism reported that more people visited Rio last week than have ever before visited any city in Brazil at one single time. My goodness, no wonder there were problems.

"The Church was only in charge of so much, we had nothing to do with the logistics . . ."

"The Republicans are trying to pin this on me? They won't pull it off this time!"

"Oh, come on, I really had nothing to do with it! It was the new guy."

"I'm just the mayor, I'm not a miracle-worker."

"I wasn't even in the city at the time! I was in a helicopter taking my dog to the vet."

"Everyone's been pointing fingers at me these days, Your Holiness, but I answer to a higher authority . . ."









Curiously, the World Youth Day event actually began a week before the Pope arrived, and there were no reported problems during that week. The "pilgrims" were separated by nationality and hosted all around the State of Rio. Búzios, for example, hosted a contingent from Peru, and the neighboring city of Cabo Frio took in Nigerians. We wondered why people had been separated like that, but we learned that each participating nationality had prepared a presentation of their country’s culture, and they needed to be together to rehearse. No, all was calm until the Pope’s arrival, when his star quality threw everyone into a tizzy. And get ready, Rio, he’s coming back in 2017. After all, he’s already got the keys.

Rio+20

The muck-a-mucks of Eco'92

In last week's blogpost I spoke of my first visit to Brazil on June 12th, 1992, a/k/a Dia dos Namorados, or Brazil's St. Valentine's Day. It happens that something much more important was going on in Rio de Janeiro at the same time. From June 3rd to June 14th of 1992, Rio was hosting the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, known here as Eco'92. Most of the heads of state who attended this summit arrived during its final weekend, landing just about when we did. Though security in the airport was extremely tight, and Mark and I didn't actually see anyone, we later figured out through news reports that we had come in somewhere between François Mitterand and George Bush, Father. (And we actually did see Mitterand, days later, visiting the Pelourinho of Salvador at the same time we were.)

Turner and Fonda and admirers

Those were difficult times in Brazil. Companies were leaving the country in droves, citing violence as one of the many reasons for pulling out their investments. Rio was living the worst of its drug wars, and all during Eco'92 a jittery federal government sent army tanks to patrol the streets. There were 64.57 murders for every 100,000 residents of the city, and nobody wanted a conference participant to join that statistic. Mark and I spent most of Eco'92 in Salvador, Bahia, where several heads of state (besides Mitterand) came to visit after the summit. I knew, for example, that Prince Rainier was in Salvador, because while we were visiting an over-the-top pousada on Itaparica Island called Quinta Pitanga, its owner, an American named Jimmy Valkus, kept looking at his watch. (Rainier was expected the next day, but bad weather kept him from showing up.) Once Mark and I got to Rio, I remember being more interested in learning who was staying in what hotel. I remember that Ted Turner made a big splash along with Jane Fonda at the elegant Gloria Hotel. And I remember there was an African delegation that tried to skip out on its huge bill at the Novo Mundo Hotel (they were stopped at the airport).

Wasn't Bob Hope in that one...?

Twenty years have passed and Brazil is about to host the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, known here as Rio+20. This time around, things couldn't be better for Brazil. Investment money is pouring in, and financially the country is doing better than most of the rest of the world. Rio's murder rate has dropped to 22.2 per 100,000 people, and most of the favelas (slums) that served as the backdrops for past drug wars are now "pacified." But in some ways things are so good that they're bad. In a burst of (abusive) capitalistic fervor, most Rio hotels jacked up their prices threefold for the duration of Rio+20. A spate of cancellations (such as the European Parliament's), sharply reduced delegation sizes and the resulting bad publicity have left everyone here very worried about what will happen during the Copa do Mundo in 2014 and the Olympics in 2016.  Although the federal government intervened and forced the hotels to return to their pre-Rio+20 rates, there's been no follow-up, nor has there been any news about relief on the lodging front. Whatever the prices, space is short, so much so that the mayor of Rio has been asking people to open their homes to accommodate all the visitors. The last we heard, Arnold Schwarzenegger still can't find anyplace to stash his sweat pants. Ted Turner is making an appearance again, this time sans Jane. Michael Bloomberg is already scheduled for his favela tour with Rio's mayor, Eduardo Paes. And there's a lot of buzz about Hillary Clinton's presence, with its "With Bill? Without Bill?" whisperings. Instead of Prince Rainier, this time it will be his son, Prince Albert. Instead of Fidel, it will be Raúl.

Needless to say, I think it's ironic that we're here again in Brazil during another ecological summit. Mark and I will again be spending it outside of Rio, in yet another place to which some of the participants will undoubtedly travel post-summit for their "see-a-bit-of-Brazil" visit. I'll be waiting for them in Búzios, tending my sustainable garden.

New Year's Eve in Brazil

I always romanticized the idea of spending New Year's Eve in Rio. I had only the vaguest notion of how Brazilians celebrated, something about dressing all in white, gathering at the beach and tossing flowers into the ocean in honor of somebody or other. Just thinking about it gave me a feeling of tranquility and peace. I wanted to join those celebrants, and I wanted to join them on Copacabana beach. Then I of course realized how allergic to crowds I am and how two million or more people might be a bit more than I could take. I began to understand that any "tranquility and peace" I might feel would be shattered by the six enormous sound stages that are set up along Copacabana beach, each stage dedicated to a particular musical style, none of them mine. It was without regret that early on I put the idea of "New Year's Eve in Rio" to rest.

So that left New Year's Eve in Búzios which, as it turns out, isn't too shabby. Our house is positioned in such a way that we can watch six or seven different fireworks displays going on all at once around our bay, including a spectacular private show put on by the owner of Cirque du Soleil, whose house is two or three to the right of ours. We wanted to share that remarkable advantage with friends, so Mark and I began a tradition of giving New Year's Eve parties. We've given five in all, with each year's turnout growing exponentially from that of the preceding year. Unfortunately, it's gotten to be too much to handle, so I think we've come to the end of our tradition. Besides the growing number of guests who — in the spirit of good will and holiday cheer — often brought friends, friends of friends and various hangers-on, there's the little problem of electricity. I mentioned in my post of this past Monday that the population of Búzios can swell to as many as 200,000 people during the holidays. Well, in order to prepare for their various celebrations, all of these 200,000 people go to their rooms and turn on their air conditioning and their hair dryers all at the same time. The electric company cannot sustain the surge. It's a rare year that we don't lose electricity, and one year I remember it not returning until the next day. Can't hear the doorbell. Can't play music. Can't turn on the stove. Can't see the way down the stairs. Can't have a party.

We don't yet know what we're going to do this year. People have been calling and feeling us out, but Brazilians like to make their plans at the last minute, so nobody's committing. One option is that we'll try some of the Brazilian traditions we've never tried before all by ourselves. Maybe at midnight we'll go down to our beach and "jump the seven waves" on our right foot, to invoke the powers of Iemanjá, goddess of the sea, so she can give us strength to face the coming year. Or maybe we'll eat the various foods you're supposed to eat at the stroke of midnight. Some say you're supposed to eat 12 grapes, one for each month, and try to internalize health, peace, love, harmony and prosperity. Others say it's pomegranate, cut in seven pieces, which you eat while holding seven seeds in your teeth. After that you wrap the seeds in white paper and keep them in your wallet all year. They say money just pours in if you do that. We've been told to eat pork for prosperity, lentils for money and walnuts to guarantee wealth and prosperity. (I see a theme here.)

Whatever we decide, it will include good food, good drink, and lots of flashlight batteries and candles. We'll probably dress in white, that's a tradition we've come to like. And if we have electricity, we'll get our annual kick from our "Guy Lombardo & his Royal Canadians — Live at the Waldorf Astoria" New Year's Eve CD. Speaking of which, here's Mr. Auld Lang Syne himself, wishing us all his last Happy New Year:

Rio's Cultural Treasures

Beach going at João Fernandes

Most visitors to Búzios come for the natural beauty of its beaches. Some come to swim, surf, boat, kayak, snorkel, hike, play. Others come to spend the day flopped in a lounge chair under an umbrella, ordering caipirinhas and platters of grilled fish from the omnipresent beach waiters. Frankly, if you don't live here surrounded by your work, your friends, your books, your music — your stuff, as George Carlin might say — there's really nothing much else to do (outside of catching a movie at the Bardot Cinema). That's why there's a Rio de Janeiro.


Like Búzios, Rio has its array of beautiful beaches and stunning nature. But Rio also has a big city cultural life that Búzios lacks. That's why, when Mark and I were in Rio last week with a free Sunday on our hands, we stayed away from Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon. We spent the day instead in historic downtown Rio at the exhibits and events going on in and around what's been dubbed the Cultural Corridor, starting with the CCBB (Centro Cultural do Banco do Brasil).

The CCBB is in a gorgeous neoclassical building owned since the 1920s by the Banco do Brasil, and restored to glory in 1989 by the bank, a huge underwriter for the arts. The CCBB has various exhibition spaces, theaters, movie screens, concert halls, a bookstore, a café, a restaurant and the de rigueur WiFi space. Admission is free. You want to pop in after doing some shopping and wander through an exhibit, or just sit in the marble rotunda and relax? Be our guest, says the CCBB. The exhibit we caught was India! (the exclamation point is part of the title, and it's deserved), an amazing interactive and multimedia show covering 3,000 years of Indian culture, from the age of antiquity to modern times. If you go in to the exhibit thinking that India is all tandoori and raga think again. The contemporary aspects of the show are a revelation, from the hilarious Bollywood film clips to the teeming black and white photographs of the gritty, seedy side of Indian life today, by Raghu Rai.

Traffic at Chawri Bazar, Raghu Rai

The God Ganesha in the entrance hall

Right outside the CCBB is the Casa França-Brasil, another historic neoclassical building that's been used as a cultural center since 1990. There's always something engaging, if not titillating, happening there. The current show is of colorful video images superimposed over huge photographs of faces and flowers. Interesting, but nowhere near as memorable as their exhibit a few months ago: two naked people lying in a giant hammock, sleeping. Next door is another cultural center, this one underwritten by the Correios, Brazil's postal service, housed in yet another historic building with yet another extraordinary exhibit. An indefatigable curator by the name of Romaric Büel spent years talking to and cajoling Rio's richest and most successful art collectors to exhibit their never-before-seen-in-public pieces of European art — their Renoirs, Picassos, Chagalls, Bosches, etc. — just one time. Not all of them agreed, but those that did gave us a real treat.

Sonia Delaunay

Auguste Renoir

From Correios we followed the winding maze of narrow streets lined with old buildings that have been restored and turned into restaurants, galleries and used-book stores. At the end of the maze is an archway, and beyond it sits the Paço Imperial. Originally built in 1699 as the Mint, then used as a governor's mansion, a royal palace and a post office, the Paço Imperial has been a a cultural center since 1985. When we stopped by last week they were just finishing a multimillion-dollar renovation. But on our next trip to Rio we plan to make a beeline there for their next exhibit, 100 Years of Brazilian Art, culled from the Banco Itaú Collection, which is the biggest art collection in all of South America.

Specialty Foods and Products

Me and my shadow at the Casa Pedro, in the SAARA in Rio 

                                 
I used to know where to go for anything in New York. Someone was looking for an out-of-print book? "Have you tried the Strand at 12th and Broadway?" Bitter lemons? "Go to Kalustyan's on Lexington." The TKTS line is way too long in Times Square? "Why don't you try the TKTS booth in the World Trade Center Concourse? They open earlier and there's never a line there." I felt oh, so very competent, and sometimes even smug.

So it was somewhat infantilizing to find myself in my new country and not know where to find some seemingly essential food products. Particularly out here in the boondocks, about two-and-a- half hours outside of Rio. How was I going to prepare Moroccan couscous without couscous grains? Or saffron threads? Or cheesecloth? What is cole slaw without celery seeds? Biscuits without creme of tartar? Anything Thai without Thai curry paste? What's a Gimlet without Rose's Lime Juice? Lemon poppy seed cake, or everything bagels, without poppy seeds? Where was I going to find ghee, besan, garam masala, and all the other Indian spices I needed? The list kept growing. I became panicky. I felt incompetent. Truth is, I was hungry!

So it became a challenge — a matter of honor — to find what I felt I needed to keep my kitchen up and running the way I wanted it. Looking back now I realize that my success in finding various foodstuffs was directly linked to my acquisition of the Portuguese language: it was mostly a simple matter of asking friends and reading magazines and newspapers. That's how we finally found the SAARA, a neighborhood of mostly Arab and Jewish businesses, somewhat akin to New York's Lower East Side in its heyday. SAARA is both an acronym for Sociedade de Amigos das Adjacências da Rua da Alfândega (Society of Friends of Alfândega Street and Environs) and a clever play on words, since "Saara" means "Sahara" in Portuguese. The SAARA has EVERYTHING a person needs or wants, from specialty foods to fabrics, gardening tools to  jewelry, housewares to party decorations to perfumes. We stop there every time we're in Rio and, for better or worse, I've regained my feeling of competence. Smugness too.

Two more pictures from my Casa Pedro:

But with victory come certain small defeats. I still can't find cheesecloth, though the fault is all mine. I know they have it here, and I've even been told what they call it: it's cânhamo. But what kind of store carries it? I shall overcome this little setback, and I will triumph over celery seeds, too. At least when I ask for them people say they've heard of them. That's always a positive sign.

What we'll never find again: poppy seeds. We used to buy them at the SAARA's Casa Pedro, but they no longer sell it, they told me apologetically, since its sale in Brazil is now prohibited. Poppy seeds. Say it out loud here and the federal police may appear out of nowhere and slap handcuffs on you. Oh, how the world has changed! Remember when poppy seeds were nothing more than a little poison that a light dusting of snow could remedy?