Get Your Flu Shots Here?

All my life I’ve known of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the CDC, as the cognoscenti call it. I always believed that here was a governmental organization that actually cared about people, about keeping people healthy. And not just in the States, but all around the world. After all, its stated mission is to be the nation’s "premier health promotion, prevention, and preparedness agency and a global leader in public health." Americans have always turned to the CDC — by telephone or letter back in the "old" days, and via their Web site now — for all kinds of health advice, including what shots to get before traveling abroad. I remember that getting shots before traveling was a really big deal, something you had to check off your "to-do" travel list. Nobody wanted to get sick on their honeymoon in Paris.

My favorite -- lotion, not spray

I just checked the CDC site last week, and found that in the past three months there have been warnings about a dengue outbreak in Madeira, Portugal, an outbreak of yellow fever in the Sudan, a cholera epidemic in the Dominican Republic, ebola in Uganda, sarcocystosis (sarco who?) in Malaysia and malaria in Greece. Whew! At least for once Brazil can relax. You have to go through a lot of drop-down menus to find any warnings about travel here right now, and what you finally get is the usual warning about dengue, kind of a default warning. If nothing else, there will always be dengue. My suggestion is not to worry, they’ve got a lot of mosquito repellant in Brazil.



For years, though, Brazil was one of the countries with long lists of recommended shots to get prior to travel here: the CDC recommended vaccinations against hepatitis A, hepatitis B, typhoid, yellow fever and malaria, albeit mostly for people traveling to the Amazon region, the subtropical areas, and interior areas where hygiene is a word, not a concept. I never got any shots in all my travels around Brazil, but plenty of people back home shook their heads, certain that I would come down with something. Never happened. I’ve been sicker in New York from badly prepared food than I’ve ever been in my many years traveling and living in Brazil.

Anyway, stop the presses! The tables have turned! Brazilians who are planning to travel to the United States right now are receiving dire warnings about the virulent strains of flu that are fast spreading around the States, the influenza A viruses known as H3N2 and H1N1, as well as several influenza B viruses. There are scads of newspaper stories, and television and radio reports every day. Anxiety reigns. Brazilians are scared.

Footnote: On the same web page where the Brazilian Health Ministry is urging travelers to get their flu shots at least 7 to 15 days before their trip, it is informing them that there are no flu shots available. You see, right now it’s summer in Brazil. Brazil’s allotment of flu vaccines was used up during the winter season here, when the campaign to get people immunized was in full swing, including all those freebie shots for us old folks over 60. What a conundrum! What’s a Brazilian with a ticket to the U.S. to do?

Boy and Beast on a Boat

On the one hand, we have Yann Martel, the Canadian author of the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, recently made into a highly-touted film which has garnered 11 Oscar nominations. Published in 2001, the novel tells the story of an Indian boy and a tiger on a lifeboat.










On the other hand, we have Moacyr Scliar, the Brazilian author of Max and the Cats, published in 1981 and translated into English in 1990. Considered Scliar’s finest work, this novel tells the story of a Jewish boy and a panther on a lifeboat.





All of which sets the stage for the hoopla in Brazil surrounding the recently-released film based on Martel’s novel, distributed here under the title As Aventuras de Pi. You can’t open a newspaper or magazine review of the movie without reference being made to the plagiarism controversy which began shortly after Martel won the Man Booker Prize in 2002. Martel said back then, and maintains even now, that he never read the Scliar book. He only read an unfavorable review written by John Updike in the New York Times Book Review. When it was pointed out that no such review was ever written, Martel changed his story, saying that he didn't remember where he had read about the Scliar book, only that it was "a brilliant premise ruined by a lesser writer." Ouch.

I guess this is where I launch into a spirited defense of Moacyr Scliar, a highly respected and widely translated author whose work I have read and enjoyed — but let’s all back up a minute. Because when you think about it, what ideas haven’t been recycled in literature? Who inspired whom? Exactly how fresh is the idea of a boy and a beast on a boat? Maybe Scliar watched Werner Herzog's 1972 film Aguirre: The Wrath of God, which tells the story of a 16th-century expedition in Latin America, and ends with the main character on a boat with monkeys. Or maybe Scliar read Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Lad and the Lion, published in 1914. That story tells of an old king’s grandson, Michael, who spent his early years on a derelict ship in the company of a lion. For that matter, maybe Burroughs read Alfred Jarry’s Exploits and Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician, published in 1911, a story which ends with the main character sailing away in a boat with a chattering ape. Maybe everyone’s taken their inspiration from Noah’s Ark, for goodness sake. There’s a story of people cast adrift with animals if ever there was one.



Let’s come back to the present day. It’s not the alleged plagiarism by Martel of Scliar’s work that has everyone in a snit here in Brazil. It’s that Moacyr Scliar was so arrogantly brushed off as a "lesser writer." That really gets people’s goat here — oh, jeez, I didn’t mean that to sound as if I were plagiarizing A Goat on a Boat, a wonderful children’s story by Brian Dowd. Really, you have to be so careful nowadays!

Subtitles

Have you ever watched a foreign film in which one of the characters spews out a full minute-and-a-half of dialogue and the subtitle is, "I don’t think so"? Did you ever wonder about that? About what you were missing? I have, often. Wanting to know what people were saying — really saying — was one of the things that pushed me to study languages in the first place. But when you don’t speak a film’s language, knowing or fearing that the subtitles might be leaving out crucial plot points or character developments is extremely frustrating to me. I’ve actually gotten into some tense discussions here in Brazil when I complain about the Portuguese subtitling I see on English-language films. My Brazilian friends tell me that the subtitlers have very little space or time within which to work, that they’re poorly compensated, that they do the best they can, that it doesn’t really matter anyway, that people get the gist. But is the gist enough?

Here’s an example: in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, there’s a recurrent phrase that has become one of the film’s most iconic lines. After what they think is a just another hold-up, Butch and the Kid marvel at the unusual persistence of their pursuers. They keep asking each other, "Who are those guys?" And here’s the Portuguese subtitle: "Odeio esses caras," which means "I hate these guys." Now, asking "who are those guys" shows vulnerability, it’s crucial to Butch and the Kid’s slow, painful realization that they are — for the first time in their joint life of crime — up against it. But if they say "I hate these guys," they’re showing attitude, and that changes everything. Here's a great montage of that line:

Sometimes the subtitlers don’t rewrite, they get it totally wrong. So much so that it’s funny. Mark and I were just watching an old American film noir called Criss Cross, with Burt Lancaster and Yvonne de Carlo. At one point the Lancaster character, a tough guy, says to another tough guy, "I’ll give you a ring tomorrow." The subtitle? "Vou te dar um anel amanhã," which is a literal translation of "give you a ring," provided you’re talking marriage. Okay, so now the Brazilian audience is supposed to think this tough guy is giving his enemy a piece of jewelry?

Tucci as Frank Nitti

There’s also a tendency when subtitling in Portuguese to sidestep English vulgarity. Okay, even I can understand how some people might shy away from foul language, there’s probably far too much of it these days anyway. But when you do that, when you rewrite the dialogue, your audience completely loses what the dialogue says about the characters. In the movie Road to Perdition, Stanley Tucci’s criminal character tells another criminal character, "You don’t know your thumb from your dick." It’s vulgar, but it’s also funny, it’s colorful and it’s true to the character. The subtitle? "Voçe não entende nada" or "you don’t understand a thing." Not vulgar, true, but also not funny, not colorful, not in the least interesting.

I know this isn’t the most important subject in the world, but it’s one of those niggling things that just make me itch. And as a devoted cinephile I’ve started to worry about how much I’m missing when I watch a Russian film with English titles, or a Danish film with Portuguese titles. More than I’d like to miss, probably. But in the grand scheme of things I guess it’s okay. People still go to the movies and still get something out of the experience. Do they get all the details? No. Do they get all the popular culture references? No. Will Mark and I continue being the only people in the theater laughing? Yes, sometimes. But our friends know that we’ll explain it to them later.

***Just one more instance: I mentioned how subtitles can’t get all the cultural references. Take this zinger that I loved, and will always remember, from the movie Leatherheads, so snappily delivered by Renee Zellweger’s Lexie to George Clooney’s Dodge: "How quiet it must be at the Algonquin with you here in Duluth." How’s a subtitler going to handle that? No matter how good you are, that line needs footnotes, not subtitles!

On Being Number Two

I am the second of three daughters. Since my father always mixed our names up, he settled for calling us by number. I was "Number Two." So I know full well what it’s like to be number two, to have second billing, to be second in the chain of command, and I can imagine what it must feel like to be second in line to the British throne. Currently, I’m the second listing on one of our utility bills, which shows my husband’s name followed by the words "e o outro" (and the other one). Boy, do I know what it means to have to try harder. Avis, I’m with you.

I used to live in the Number One country (according to scores of criteria), but now I live in the Number Two country (which might explain why I feel so at home here). There isn't a day that goes by that I don’t read the words, "Brazil is second only to the United States in . . ." or "Brazil is the world's second largest market for . . .," always followed by the United States. It’s become quite the joke of the house. Here’s just a sampling:

On the health and medical front, Brazil is second only to the United States in the number of stomach reduction and cosmetic surgeries performed. Brazil is the world's second largest market for breast implants, dental implants, and private health plans. In its search for healthier lifestyles, Brazil is the world's second largest market for exercise equipment. But at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Brazil unfortunately ranked second only to the United States in the number of reported cases of AIDS. On an even darker note, Brazil has become the world's second largest market for cocaine and crack consumption.

Moving on to food consumption and/or production, Brazil is second only to the United States in land area planted with genetically modified crops. It’s second only to the United States in soy production and in corn exports. Brazil is the world's second largest market for pet food and for Nestlé products. And although "they’ve got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil," the country is also second to the United States in coffee consumption.



blindado = armored

As a country with a thriving, pulsating business economy, Brazil is the world's second largest market for executive jets and helicopters, for cell phones and for fax machines. It’s also the world's second largest market for armored cars (hmmm). Brazil is second only to the United States in the number of ATM machines it has, and in the number of private swimming pools it boasts. Brazil is the world's second largest surf and skateboard market, and the world's second largest market for jeans. (Why I can’t find a pair of Brazilian jeans that I like is another story.)

And here’s an interesting one for the socially-networked: Brazil is second only to the United States in number of Facebook users!







Mind you, I can’t vouch for any of this information because it’s constantly changing. In some instances China has surpassed Brazil (particularly in the luxury goods markets). But I can vouch categorically for what it feels like to be number two, and I know that Brazil has that "number two" mind set. I know. I wasn't just number two in birth order. In my most shining high school moment I won second place in the 1967 New Jersey Forensic League Oratory Contest. "Always number two," said my almost-proud father.

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

"Maybe it’s much too early in the game,
Ah, but I thought I’d ask you just the same,
What are you doing New Year’s,
New Year’s Eve?"
Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser

And before you answer, here’s a real blast from the past, from the Lawrence Welk show!!

Well, this surely is the question. We all ask it every year and — true to form — the question has already been circulating among our friends here in Brazil. What are we doing New Year’s Eve. Everybody’s feeling everybody out. Are you giving a party? Have you been invited to a "good" party? Can we tag along? Are you traveling, or will you be spending New Year’s Eve at home, just hanging out? Maybe we’ll hang out with you? Brazilians like to make their plans at the last minute, so nobody’s committing. And we’ve Brazilianized enough not to have committed yet either. We don’t know what we’re going to do.

Our 2006-2007 party

We have given five New Year’s Eve parties out of the ten New Year’s Eves we’ve spent here. But the decision to give another party is a real "on-the-one-hand-this, on-the-other-hand-that" kind of decision. Because on the one hand, we feel it’s selfish of us not to give a party. Our house is positioned in such a way that we can see 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, who has a house two or three to the right of ours. How can we not share that remarkable advantage with our friends?

On the other hand, a good New Year’s Eve party is an enormous commitment of time and effort. If you want to give a good party, with good food, good drink and good music, you have to work at it. At our last party we had about 50 people (including party crashers), and the invitation list will only have grown exponentially since then. But we can’t help but think, why let a lot of work stop us? Because it’s really a lot of fun, too. Why else have this house, and in a party town that people flock to in droves during the holiday season?

They enter any way they can

I'm sure she crashed here, too!

On the other hand, there’s the little problem of electricity. During the holidays the 28,000-strong population of Búzios swells to as many as 200,000 people. Hard for the electric company to sustain the demand of so many air conditioners and hair dryers! More than once we’ve lost electricity on New Year’s Eve itself. And even if we stock up on candles and batteries and flashlights, any party we’ve planned and prepared and worked on and set food out for can easily go bust. Without electricity you can’t hear the doorbell. You can’t play music. You can’t turn on the stove. You can’t see your way down the stairs. You can’t have a party.

Crowds, noise, congestion -- Happy New Year!

And then there’s the problem we suffer if there is electricity. Because a good, strong supply of electricity guarantees that whoever has rented nearby houses can blast their music, the relentless boom-boom-boom that drowns out our own big band music. Last year, it was just Mark and me, and we couldn’t hear our own conversation. We also couldn’t sleep. So do we go out? On the one hand, that’s an attractive idea. If we go out, to a party or to a restaurant, we’re free from all that work. But on the other hand, we get caught in horrible bumper-to-bumper traffic, slowly inching our way nowhere fast.

So we still haven’t a clue as to what we’ll end up doing on New Year’s Eve. Whatever we decide to do, I wish you all a very Happy New Year! I’ll be taking a break from blogging for a few weeks. See you next year!

Birds of a Feather

My husband, Mark, used to own the LP pictured here, Cantos de Aves do Brasil (Brazilian Bird Calls), back in the days when people used to own LPs. It was a serious piece of research, recorded back in the late '50s by Johan Dalgas Frisch, a Brazilian engineer and ornithologist. I was proud that it was part of our record collection, though I hardly listened to it. It's not exactly something you can put on the record player and tap your toe to. In fact, it wasn't until we left New York and moved to Búzios, and the first Brazilian bird crashed into our living-room window and perished (our first big drama here), that I started to pay real attention to the amazing birds soaring and dipping and gliding and singing all around us. I've wanted to write about them for a long time, but thought I couldn't write anything without knowing their names. But you know, I will never know all their names, in any language. So why not just put up all the pretty pictures? I do know some names, after all, and we can make the others up.

I'm going to start off with the prize, this gorgeous creature who came to visit for the first time last week, and stayed for hours before flying off. It was completely untroubled by our presence, by our picture-taking, by our talking. This bird seemed so used to being near humans that we thought maybe it was someone's escaped pet. I wish it would come back.









This one has a name! It's a bem-ti-vi (or great kiskadee), called so because the name mimics its call, or tries to. They're very common here, but no less beautiful because of that. There are two in this picture. Can you find Waldo?











We have lots of hummingbirds, but rarely do they sit still for a picture. This one did.













The garça (egret) is one of the most exquisitely graceful birds I've ever seen.

















I don't know what these are, I call them the "tiny black-and-whites."
















Next door to us there's a wooded area that houses large families of this bird, the martin pescador, or kingfisher. It has an awful cackle, but it's fun to watch.













Other families who live in that treed lot are brown doves, cooing, cooing, cooing all the time. And yes, they often do sit nestled up next to each other. It's really sweet.
















Lots of seagulls by the sea. No surprise here.

We hear this one before we see it. It's the extremely noisy woodpecker.











Since I began this post with a gorgeous bird, I shall end it with this really ugly vulture.

How Does My Garden Grow?

Long after I had left the proverbial nest, my parents started a vegetable garden in the backyard. They grew great big Jersey beefsteak tomatoes, sugar snap peas, zucchini, eggplant, carrots, squash, you name it. I think my moment of epiphany came one day when my mother was preparing dinner (grilled salmon with roasted new potatoes) and sent my father out to harvest some sugar snap peas. He brought in a bagful, she sauteed them in butter, and served what became one of those memorable meals the family would talk about for years later. Everything was delicious, but it was those peas, those just-off-the-vine, sweet sugar snaps that clinched the deal. I’ve wanted a garden of my own ever since.

American Gothic lives!

Mary, Mary, quite contrary . . . 

Unfortunately, I lived in apartments for about 20 years, so whatever ambitious gardening plans I might have had were put on hold. Couldn’t even set a couple of potted herbs out on the windowsills — co-ops have Rules, after all — so I bided my time. And just when I was getting stiff-jointed and cranky, just when my back pains made it all but impossible to bend down, let alone plant, weed and harvest, that’s when Mark and I bought a house where it was really tempting to play the farmer in the dell at long last. I was undaunted and ready to plunge ahead, even if it hurt. At first we didn’t know where to put the garden. How were we going to "plow the North 40" on a property built on a steep incline? The only level area lay alongside the beach some 68 steps down from the house (not to mention 68 steps back up). No dice. I tried planting some herbs in a narrow strip of dirt alongside our kitchen, but they never got enough sun. No dice. Then I thought, let's use the jardineiras, deep planters built onto the outside walls of our terrace. But these jardineiras hang some eight meters above the ground. No way was I going to be able to handle a garden there. No dice. Then along came Sandoval.

Jardineiras in the sky

Sandoval is our new caseiro, or caretaker, now a mere eight months into his job. He grew up on a farm in the northeastern state of Bahia. His nostalgia for farming and my desire for a vegetable garden were a match made in heaven. Sandoval is young and nimble and fearless, and jumps in and out of those jardineiras like an Olympic gymnast on the balance beam. And he makes it down those 68 steps and back up without a huff or a puff. It took ten years, but we’ve begun to harvest our first crops.

So far, we’re doing pretty well in that "North 40" by the beach. Sandoval’s been nursing various fruit trees, like banana, sugar apple, passion fruit and avocado. Our successes up in the jardineiras have been three varieties of lettuces, green and red peppers, cherry tomatoes, kale, beets and carrots. As for my kitchen herbs, we’ve been harvesting parsley and cilantro, but are watching oregano, basil, rosemary and thyme with some trepidation. They’re looking a bit frail. Our failures, on the other hand, have been many: zucchini, melon, cucumber, eggplant, turnip, scallion, pumpkin and green beans have all turned to mulch. But we keep on buying seeds, and Sandoval keeps on planting them. There’s something wonderfully visceral and satisfying about picking your own peck of peppers to pickle — not to mention pulling up your own carrots. Right, Miz Scarlett?