Culture Shock

Coming in on the Marginal Tietê

What bumpkins we’ve become! We lived in New York, for heaven’s sake, we’ve been in a Big City before. But much to my surprise and consternation I started feeling the first signs of certain anxiety on our approach to São Paulo a few weeks ago. The tall buildings were looming on the horizon, growing higher and more menacing as we got closer. The traffic was getting heavier, with huge trucks and lumbering buses crowding the little cars and blocking the traffic signs. How would we see our exit? I’m convinced that if you miss a turnoff in São Paulo you can easily end up caught in Johnny Carson’s Slauson Cutoff routine! The overpasses and underpasses and highways feeding into São Paulo were becoming more and more complex. It was dizzying.

The monstrous Holiday Inn Anhembi

Mark and I had been invited to attend a congress/convention event in São Paulo on behalf of a business magazine back in the States. Since this invitation was a great opportunity for us to get out of the house and actually go somewhere, we accepted. We hadn’t been in São Paulo for years! I was excited! How was I to know how frightening and bewildering and unpleasant it would be once I was actually in such a vast expanse of concrete, steel, fumes and noise. It didn’t help that we were put up at the largest hotel in all of Latin America, the Holiday Inn Anhembi. A great hotel if you have business in the adjacent convention center. A dreadful place if you don’t. When your day’s business is done at the convention center you’re completely trapped out on São Paulo’s periphery in an enormous complex of buildings and arenas and parking lots. Want to explore nearby restaurant offerings? There are none. Want to do some window shopping? No dice.

There were days when we thought, Hey, let’s ditch the event and take the subway to our favorite São Paulo neighborhoods. At least that way, we figured, we’d be reminded of the best of São Paulo. Unfortunately, the closest subway stop was so far from the hotel that we needed to take the hotel’s shuttle bus to get there. Then there was the subway itself. When did it get so big? When did the transfers get so complicated? Where did all those people come from? I tell you, during one of these rides (okay, it was a Friday at rush hour) Mark and I were so packed and wedged and shoved in that we panicked and forced our way out of the car at whatever the next stop was. We managed to find a taxi, only to end up stuck in one of São Paulo’s forever and endless traffic jams.

But it wasn’t all bad, since we did find our way to São Paulo’s renowned Bienal exhibition of avant-garde art in beautiful Ibirapuera Park, where the piece we liked best was a huge mural on the entrance wall called "Map," by the Chinese artist Qiu Zhijie. Since it was all in English, most Brazilians walked right by. But Mark and I spent a long time studying it, sometimes laughing out loud at its ingenuity.

We also passed through the São Paulo Museum of Modern Art right next door, where an exhibit of hundreds of personal shopping lists caught me up. I must have read each and every one. How could I not? I’m a list-maker from way back!





Doesn't look like much in the pictures, but once you get up close and start reading . . .












We also did our share of ooh-ing and ah-ing at São Paulo’s Municipal Market, an absolute must-visit for me. Walking around the Market, with its unbelievable wealth of gastronomic offerings, I almost — just almost — thought about moving to São Paulo. For about a minute.
Here's just a slice of what's on offer:

A visit to Avenida Paulista is always de rigueur for us; it’s the heart of the banking and office building sector and there are always interesting art exhibits in, or just off of, the bank lobbies. There’d been lots of changes, but we did, as always, pass by one of the last — if not the last — old coffee baron mansions still standing, albeit on its last legs.





Residência Joaquim Franco de Mello, circa 1905 . . .

. . . and circa 2014 . . .

Still and all, what for us was the best part of getting away? Coming home.







Dear Readers,
I’ve ended my third year of blogging! I made a half-assed promise (to myself) to continue through the 2016 Olympics. Maybe by then I’ll have said everything I have to say about Brazil. Or not.

You Call This First Aid?

...one, two, three....pause....one, two, three...

Remember those high school gym classes when some handsome volunteer fireman would come and show us how to administer emergency first aid? We learned CPR, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (with lots of blushing and giggling, of course), how to tie a tourniquet, how to apply direct pressure and "elevate the area." And whether or not any of us have ever used these skills, we learned that running to help someone who’s hurt should always be your first response. In fact, it’s not for nothing that the new name for emergency personnel is First Responders. Thanks to the First Responders in Boston last month, the death toll was held to the initial three victims, because in an emergency you don’t have time to think, you just act. What else is first aid if not the aid you give first?

That’s why I’m obsessed by the absurdity of a new law in the State of São Paulo. This new law, promulgated in January 2013, prohibits police from assisting people injured in serious crimes. The police must keep civilians away from the victim, too. Everyone must stand back and wait for an ambulance to show up, while some poor guy bleeds to death, or dies of shock. I mean, think about this law in practical terms, particularly in a country where the ambulances come when they come. Last week in São Paulo a college student was walking home from evening classes when he was assaulted by an armed robber. The student immediately handed over his cell phone, but was shot anyway. Police arrived quickly, but the ambulance took 29 minutes. For 29 minutes the student lay on the cold, hard asphalt, bleeding and in pain, all the while surrounded by police and witnesses. Nobody was allowed even to staunch the blood. To me, this is not only absurd, but inhuman and criminal. (The following video is grainy, but shows the moment of the assault. The kid was finally taken to a hospital and to this day his condition remains serious, unsurprisingly.)

Folha de São Paulo's reader poll

What is the idea behind this nonsense? Well, the reasons are twofold. First, the São Paulo authorities say they want to offer quality care to the victim, the quality care that only trained medical personnel can provide. After all, the police might aggravate the injuries, right? And civilians, goodness knows what a mess they might make. So let’s all just wait — and wait, and wait — for the ambulance. The second reason given by the authorities is the need to ensure that no one interferes in a crime scene, neither police nor civilians. Really, I think people are watching too much CSI. I can’t imagine I’d prefer bleeding to death so as to preserve a crime scene. And I’ve found that I’m not alone in my outrage. The newspaper Folha de São Paulo conducted an online poll which found that 85% of the poll’s participants were against the new law.

Let’s not even mention that this new law contradicts Article 135 of the Brazilian Penal Code, which states that any failure to assist someone in need (omissão de socorro) is a crime. A classic damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t situation. All I can do is shake my head and plan to steer clear of São Paulo. I’m a product of my upbringing, and I’m used to laws that speak to a citizen’s duty to rescue, or duty to act, as well as Good Samaritan laws that protect those who offer emergency first aid. Remember Seinfeld? That show was syndicated in Brazil, and was wildly popular. Doesn’t anyone in São Paulo remember the show’s famous finale? The four protagonists find themselves with a few hours to kill in a small Massachusetts town, where they are arrested under a Good Samaritan law for failing to help someone in need, and are later sentenced to one year in prison. I think the authorities who promulgated the new "hands-off" law in São Paulo ought to watch this:

***NOTE***
Well, I was right, this new law sure is controversial. A week before I wrote this blogpost the law was stayed, but it was reinstated the next day, so I didn’t bother mentioning that detail. However, just days before the blog was set to publish, the law was stayed again, with the absurd contention, made by the Secretary of Public Safety, that the police were never actually prohibited from assisting. It was just a recommendation. I elected not to change the blog since in all likelihood some other authority will weigh in with more changes, leading to more confusion. That the law was even on the books for five months is, in my opinion, worth noting.

Twin Pianos

"I love a piano, I love a piano, 
I love to hear somebody play, 
Upon a piano, a grand piano, 
It simply carries me away..." 

Years ago in New York Mark and I were channel-surfing one night, and happened on a peculiarly New York show called "John's Cabaret," starring John Wallowitch. Here was this elfin guy of some other era, dressed in a tuxedo, sitting at a piano playing show tunes, while constantly engaging in a back-and-forth patter with unseen people offstage. Fascinated, Mark and I took to tuning in the show every week. Wallowitch was such a character, and his show embodied all of my ideas about New York cabaret sophistication. Imagine my astonishment when years later, in Brazil, we were channel-surfing one night and happened on a show called "Pianíssimo," starring Pedrinho Mattar. Here was this elfin guy of some other era, dressed in a tuxedo, sitting at a piano playing show tunes, while constantly engaging in a back-and-forth patter with unseen people offstage. Coincidence? Or some strange North American-South American synchronicity?

                                  JW (left), PM (right). Separated at birth?

We slid right into the old Wallowitch groove and began to watch Pedrinho Mattar every Sunday. With little or no Portuguese at that time, I was particularly delighted. Mattar spoke in English and French as well as Portuguese. He told little anecdotes that I kind of followed. He showed film clips of old Hollywood musicals that made me wistful for the Late Late Show. During his television show there was always mention of his weekly Saturday night gig at the Casa Grande Hotel in Guarujá, an old resort town on the coast of São Paulo State. At first Mark and I joked about going to see his show, but we were just joking. Then we thought, we never saw Rosemary Clooney at the Rainbow Room when we had the chance. We never saw Bobby Short at the Carlyle when we had the chance. We never saw Wallowitch anywhere. They're all gone now. This Pedrinho Mattar, he was no spring chicken. Were we going to miss him, too?

You see where this is going. We made reservations and headed for Guarujá. We got to the imposing Casa Grande Hotel early, chose a table right in front of the piano, and spent a delightfully old-fashioned cabaret evening. Towards the end of the show, Mattar started peppering the audience with musical trivia questions, and voices around us tentatively called out answers. Then came the stumper of the evening: "Who played the piano player, Sam, in Casablanca?" "Dooley Wilson," I heard myself shout out. "Give that woman another one of whatever she's drinking," Mattar ordered the waiter. Best Kir Royale I ever had.

For those who like to dabble in the occult, think about this: Wallowitch was born in the month of February and died in the month of August. Mattar was born in the month of August and died in the month of February. And both of them died in the year 2007. Coincidence? You decide.