Brazzil
March 1999
Short and Longer Notes
RAPIDINHAS
Behavior
Teasing
Undies
The Salão Internacional de Moda Íntima (International Fair of Intimate Fashion), recently held in São Paulo, showed that despite recessive times in Brazil there's no recession in the panty and bra business. The small company Lovable, for example, had planned to reach $600,000 in sales throughout 1999. The goal was reached in the first two months of the year.
The underwear manufacturer got a big hand from Tiazinha, the pleasantly sadistic character who has become the biggest star of prime-time Brazilian TV. Dressed in little more than panties and a bra, and wearing a mask, while handling a whip—Tiazinha is fulfilling the fantasies of all those looking for a dominatrix. Other women want to emulate her now. Lovable has used Tiazinha, the alter ego of communications student Suzana Alves, in 53 items of its lingerie line and the strategy seems to have worked miracles.
The Brazilian underwear industry sells close to 600 million bras and panties a year, which means an average of five panties and two bras for every old, young, and baby female in the country. The São Paulo-based DuLoren company, one of the leaders of the lingerie business, produces some 140 different styles of panties. Lace and silk are still the rigueur in the most exclusive creations, but more and more people will see the use of the LycraTactel fiber, a material previously used only in sports clothes. The tendency is also for bras to have rings and fillings to enhance that part of the anatomy in which Brazilian women are generally not well endowed. There is a great variety of panties, but for racier nights the favorite pieces today, as revealed by the sales charts, are the dental-floss transparent type.
Why this fascination with underwear? Producer Daniella Farias, 26, from Brasília, could have the response in an interview she gave the local daily Correio Braziliense: "I feel superpowerful with one of these panties. Men go crazy when they see how minuscule and tempting they are. I like to produce myself for that special moment. The results are always positive and approval is immediate," Farias revealed that she might think that a dress for $20 is too expensive, but not a panty-bra set for double the price. She owns 15 special sets right now.
Nelma Penteado, a strip-tease teacher from São Paulo and owner of the lingerie line Espaço Sensual, in the same cover-story article from Correio Braziliense, confided on her experience in this area: "Women like to be admired. Intimate clothes are an excellent accessory and women know that no man is turned off by beautiful lingerie. He wants to know what's behind it." Penteado explains the symbolism of colors. White is used to express a desire of romance, black and red mean that the woman is looking for something a little hotter and crazier.
Culture
Golden
BronzeThe authors of the book of the year in the categories of fiction and non-fiction will receive the equivalent of $6,000 each. Most of the other 43 winners will take home only a humble bronze trophy, the Jabuti statuette. It's the prestige that counts for the traditional Prêmio Jabuti, which has been given for 41 years by the Câmara Brasileira do Livro (Brazilian Chamber of Book). The award was given this year to three publications in 15 categories and was presented March 23 during the Salão Internacional do Livro de São Paulo (São Paulo International Book Fair). The first place winner in each category will get a check for $500 in addition to the trophy.
The most traditional literary prize in Brazil was instituted by Diaulas Rideel, in 1959, when he was president of Câmara do Livro. The jabuti (turtle) was chosen as the symbol for its image of persistence and studious effort. Internationally-renowned author Jorge Amado won the first prize for fiction in 1959 for his novel Gabriela, Cravo e Canela (Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon). The jury that chooses the winner is formed by teachers and intellectuals. The 45 titles below were chosen among 1580 titles submitted to the competition.
The semi-final winners and their publishers:Novel:
Cabra-cega (Relume-Dumará) by Carlos Nascimento Silva
Os seios de Pandora (Rocco) by Sônia Coutinho
Resumo de Ana (Cia. das Letras) by Modesto Carone
Short story:
Antologia pessoal (Mercado Aberto) by Charles Kiefer
As palavras secretas (Cia. das Letras) by Rubens Figueiredo
Bolha de luzes (Cia. das Letras) by João Inácio Padilha
Poetry:
Crisantempo (Perspectiva) by Haroldo de Campos
Invenção do mar (Record) by Gerardo Mello Mourão
Mural de ventos (José Olympio) by Salgado Maranhão
Essay and biography:
A sensibilidade do intelecto (Campus) by Fayga Ostrower
As barbas do imperador (Cia. das Letras) by Lila Moritz Schwarcz
Os males da ausência (Topbooks) by Maria José de Queiroz
Economy and law:
Globalização e desemprego (Contexto) by Paul Singer
Guia dos seus direitos (Globo) by Josué Rios
O capitalismo global (Paz e Terra) by Celso Furtado
Natural sciences and medicine:
Amazônia meio desenvolvimento agrícola (Embrapa) Organized by Alfredo K. Oyama Homma
Caxiuanã (Museu Goeldi) by Pedro L. B. Lisboa
Guia para identificações de fungos actinomicetos (Sarvier) by Lacaz/Porto/Heins-Vaccari/Takahashi Melo
Exact sciences and computers:
As ciências em Portugal e no Brasil (Educ) by Márcia Helena Mendes Ferraz
Curso de física básica (Edgard Blucher) by Herch Moysés Nussenzveig
Números, uma introdução à matemática (Edusp) by Sônia Coelho and César Millies
Human Sciences:
A viagem do descobrimento (Objetiva) by Eduardo Bueno
Cocanha (Cia. das Letras) by Hilário Franco Júnior
História da vida privada III e IV (Cia. das Letras) organized by F. Novais
Journalism:
Imagens da fotografia brasileira (Estação Liberdade) by Simonetta Persichetti
Mulheres que foram à luta armada (Globo) by Luiz Makolouf Carvalho
Paulo Autran, um homem no palco (Boitempo) by Alberto Guzik
Translation:
Obras completas de Jorge Luis Borges (Globo) by Mattoso/Schwartz/Baptista/Mascarenhas/Araújo/Réboni/Eulálio /Lima/Nejar/Cadozo
Prosa poética (Topbooks) by Ivo Barroso
Tirant lo blanc (Giordano) by Cláudio Giordano
Cover:
Chic homem, manual de moda e estilo (Senac) by Marina Nakada and Sidney Itto
Cozinha italiana (Cia. das Letras) by Helga Miethke
O fio de Dédalo (Record) by Victor Burton
Editorial production:
Arte construtiva no Brasil (DBA Melhoramentos) by Paulo Malta
Enlouquecer o subjétil (Unesp/Ateliê/Imesp) by Lena Bergstein
O mez da grippe e outros livros (Cia. das Letras) by Elisa Braga
School books:
Gramática, texto e uso (Atual) by W. Cereja and T. C. Magalhães
Jornal do século XX (Moderna) by Jayme Brener
Nosso folclore (Ave Maria) by Maria Almeida and Zuleika Prado
For Children:
A outra enciclopédia canina (Cia. das Letras) by Ricardo Azevedo
Dezenove poemas desengonçados (Ática) by Ricardo Azevedo
Nadando contra a morte (Formato) by Lourenço Cazarré
Children's Book Illustration:
(Agir) by Roger Mello
De frente para o sol (Moderna) by Demóstenes Vargas
Dez sacizinhos (Paulinas) by Roberto Weigand
Memory
Wordsmith
With characteristic humility Antônio Houaiss used to call himself "a humble word worker. I am no poet or creator." And yet his work was the highly sophisticated one of building dictionaries and encyclopedias. The respected intellectual and former minister died March 7, in Rio, at age 83, after being in the hospital since December to treat chronic pneumonia. Houaiss died before concluding his most ambitious project, an extensive Portuguese dictionary, with the origins for every word listed, which he was having difficulty financing.
Born on October 15, 1915, in Rio, Houaiss was the fifth of seven children of Lebanese immigrant Habib Assad Houaiss and Brazilian Malvina Farjalla Houaiss. He was raised in the legendary beach neighborhood of Copacabana. The scholar loved the sea and became an excellent swimmer.
His marriage lasted until the death of his spouse in 1988. He married his wife—Ruth Marques de Sales, a Latin teacher from Bahia—in 1942. They had no children. Also in 1942, he graduated in classic letters from Faculdade Nacional de Filosofia da Universidade do Brasil. From 1934 to 1946 he worked as a Latin, Portuguese, and Literature high school teacher until he was accepted into the Itamaraty (the Foreign Service) as a diplomat.
For someone so unassuming he possessed an impressive collection of titles: philologist, encyclopedist, Culture Minister (under President Itamar Franco), diplomat, translator, and teacher. From 1978 to 1981 he was Rio's Writers Union president. And he was an "Immortal," one of the 40 for-life members of the ABL (Academia Brasileira de Letras—Brazilian Academy of Letters). Houaiss was admitted to the ABL in 1971 and was its president in 1996. He was buried at the ABL's mausoleum in the São João Batista cemetery in Rio.
He became in 1964 one of the first victims of the military dictatorship that lasted from 1964 to 1985. Houaiss was stripped from his civil rights for 10 years and forced into a premature retirement. A blessing in disguise because it led the lexicographer to dedicate himself full time to his intellectual endeavors, in particular to his dictionaries and encyclopedias. That's when he also found time for the Herculean task of translating James Joyce's Ulysses.
He wrote close to 50 books including A Nova Ortografia da Língua Portuguesa (Portuguese Language New Orthography), O Que é a Língua? (What's Language?) and A Crise da Nossa Língua de Cultura (The Crisis of Our Language of Culture). Houaiss also helped to establish the definitive text for several Brazilian writers including Lima Barreto, Gonçalves Dias, and Augusto dos Anjos. The English-Portuguese Dictionary edited by James L. Taylor and the Webster's English-Portuguese Dictionary both compiled by him can be found at the Amazon Internet bookstore (http://www.amazon.com). To celebrate his 80th birthday the Civilização Brasileira publishing house released Antônio Houaiss: uma Vida (Antônio Houaiss: a Life), a tribute book written by 41 authors.
Speaking about Houaiss's death, Arnaldo Niskier, president of the Academy of Letters declared: "The Brazilian culture lost its greatest philologist. The man who personified a tradition of great names in the cultivation of the Portuguese language. The Academy also lost a great fighter for the establishment of an orthographic agreement for unifying the Portuguese language. The best way to pay homage to his memory is to guarantee that this agreement, which has dragged on since 1990, be finally signed by the seven countries of the Portuguese-speaking community (Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe). This was his biggest dream. In the last years his passion was divided between the fight for the orthographic agreement and the making of his big multimedia dictionary which should be released in September 2000."
The new dictionary, which will be called Houaiss in an homage to its creator, will contain about 320,000 terms with etymological and morphological explanations, double the entries of the most popular Brazilian current dictionary, the Aurélio, prepared by Aurélio Buarque de Holanda. Research on the dictionary—started in 1986—had stopped between '92 and '97 for lack of funds. Now there are 50 experts working on it. Ninety percent of the work has already been concluded. Most of the effort now will be concentrated on proofreading.
Houaiss's defense of the new orthography brought him some enemies even amongst his fellow members in the Academy and he was accused of pushing legislation for self-benefit so he could better sell his new dictionary. His Ulysses translation, which first appeared in 1966, was very controversial. Some critics accused him of giving too much importance to the linguistic aspect of the book forgetting other angles. Houaiss defended himself: "Joyce deliberately practiced violence against the English language. It was a new language. I, as a translator, tried to do the same."
Houaiss believed in the power of culture saying that "the culture doesn't intend to change only the vision of the world, but wishes to change the reality when this is repugnant." His term as Culture minister didn't last more than one year, though. The intellectual in him was never capable of wearing the political suit. He abandoned the post criticizing the ridiculous 0.03% of the budget reserved for culture and lambasting pork-barrel politics.
Politically active, he helped to found the Partido Socialista Brasileiro (Brazilian Socialist Party). More recently he defined himself—not without irony—as a "post-agnostic and a pre-Christian." In the '50's, while serving as a diplomat, Houaiss was placed in "inactive status" after being accused of involvement with the left. Only in 1990 was he was officially reinstated as a diplomat.
The intellectual was an acerbic critic of the Brazilian educational system. He used to say that educationally Brazil was still a country in the 18th century, when only 2% of the population knew how to read. He never accepted the statistics indicating that 30% of Brazilians are illiterate. Houaiss believed that 70% of the Brazilian population is functionally illiterate.
On the hobby front Houaiss was famous for his knowledge and ability around the kitchen. And he was very proud of being a gourmet. He called himself, with self-created neologisms, "mestre nas artes comestória e bibitória," (master in the eatatory and drinkatory arts). It wasn't uncommon for him to abandon his fellow guests at the table to join the chef in the kitchen at a friend's house or in a restaurant. "The secret of eating well is variety," he used to teach.
In 1958 he founded the Confraria dos Gastrônomos (Gastronomes Brotherhood) where he stayed until 1975. He left there for disagreeing with new member President General Emílio Garrastazu Médici who joined the gourmets' club in 1975. Four years later he started a new group, the Companheiros da Boa Mesa (Companions of the Good Table). For all his love of good food he never lost his thin figure, which was cause for envy from friends and foes alike.
He even wrote his own cook book, Magia da Cozinha Brasileira (Brazilian Cuisine Magic) (1979), with 100 recipes of regional Brazilian cuisine. He came back to the subject in 1986 with Receitas Rápidas (Fast Recipes), a collection of 81 dishes for those amateur chefs de cuisine in a hurry. A beer lover, he also authored A Cerveja e Seus Mistérios (The Beer and Its Mysteries).
For him, cooking was something cultural and he criticized men incapable of donning an apron and going to the kitchen: "Men who are not interested in eating, or that snub going into the kitchen, are male chauvinists who believe they can become more macho by doing this."
Bibliography:
Anthologies and Essays:
Prefácio, in vida urbana (1956)
Crítica avulsa (1960)
Seis poetas e um problema, estudos de crítica literária, estilística e ecdótica (1967)
Augusto dos Anjos, poesia, antologia, introdução e notas (1960)
Qual prefácio, in A rima na poesia de Carlos Drummond de Andrade, de Hélcio Martins (1968)
Introdução, in Reunião: 10 livros de poesia, de Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1969)
Crítica literária e estruturalismo, in II Simpósio de língua e literatura portuguesa (1969)
Drummond mais seis poetas e um problema (1976)
Homenagem a Joaquim Cardoso, conferência (1978)
Estudos vários sobre palavras, livros e autores (1979)
Philology, Bibliology:
Tentativa de descrição do sistema vocálico do português culto na área dita carioca, dialectologia e ortofonia (1959)
Sugestões para uma política da língua (1960)
O Serviço de Documentação da Presidência da República (1960)
Introdução filológica às Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, fixação do texto crítico (1961)
Elementos de bibliologia (1967)
A crise de nossa língua de cultura (1983)
O português no Brasil (1985)
O que é língua? (1990)
A nova ortografia da Língua Portuguesa (1991)
Politics:
A defesa (1979)
Brasil—O fracasso do conservadorismo (1985)
Brasil-URSS - 40 anos do estabelecimento de relações diplomáticas, colective work (1985)
Socialismo e liberdade, with Roberto Amaral (1990)
Variações em torno do conceito de democracia, with Roberto Amaral (1992)
Socialismo—Vida, morte e ressurreição (1993)
A modernidade no Brasil—Conciliação ou ruptura? (1995)
Os socialistas e a guerra (1991)
Texts by Classics:
Obras de Lima Barreto, with Francisco de Assis Barbosa and Manuel Cavalcanti Proença (1956)
O texto dos poemas, in Gonçalves Dias, poesia e prosa escolhida (1959)
Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas, de Machado de Assis (1961)
Eu, outras poesias, poemas esquecidos, de Augusto dos Anjos (1965); Edições críticas de Obras de Machado de Assis (1975).
Reference:
Anais do Primeiro Congresso Brasileiro de Língua Falada no Teatro (1956)
Novo dicionário Barsa das línguas inglesa e portuguesa , 2 vols., with Catherine B. Avery (1964)
Grande enciclopédia Delta-Larousse, 12 volumes
Enciclopédia Mirador Internacional, 20 volumes and 1 atlas (1975)
Pequeno dicionário enciclopédico Koogan-Larousse (1979)
Vocabulário ortográfico da Língua Portuguesa (1981)
Webster's dicionário inglês-português, 2 volumes, with Ismael Cardim and other (1982).
Gastronomy:
Magia da cozinha brasileira (1979)
Receitas Rápidas (1986)
A cerveja e seus mistérios (1986)
Memory
Big
Little
VoiceWriter Mário de Andrade, who nicknamed her "The Nightingale," painted her in poetic colors: "She has an admirable voice with an impregnating allure. She proves that a bird's soul can escalate in passion." Brazilian nightingale Bidu Sayão is quiet now. She flew away March 13, at age 96, after fighting pneumonia in Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport, Maine, USA. She lived in Lincolnville, Maine. Sayão had moved to the area, bitter with Brazil and the treatment Brazilians gave her. She asked to be cremated and her ashes spread in Lincolnville Bay just in front of her house.
The soprano, admired by Italian maestro Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957) who called her "la piccola brasiliana," was one of the best prima donnas the world has ever known. Her first performance in the US happened in 1936. From the late '30s through the '40s Sayão was one of the most popular stars of the New York Metropolitan Opera. She was decorated by the U.S. government for her performances for soldiers during World War II.
She was born Balduína de Oliveira Sayão in the Rio beachside neighborhood of Botafogo on May 11, 1902. Balduína was named after her grandmother and also adopted the Bidu nickname that her mother had. The artist was only 5 when her father died. Her mother Maria José Sayão would be her biggest inspiration and her only monetary source during the beginning of her career. She later complained that no school, company, or government department would help her when she was starting. She carried some resentment for Brazil all her life, but at the same time preserved her Brazilian identity, refusing for example to seek American citizenship.
She was a mere 18 when she premiered in the Teatro Municipal do Rio de Janeiro interpreting Gaetano Donizzetti's opera Lucia de Lammermoor. Her work received rave reviews. After that she went to Europe and in 1922 was admitted in Nice, France, to the school of renowned Polish tenor Jean de Reszke, with whom she learned the delicate way of singing that would become her trademark. After starring as Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville in Brazil, in 1926, she was invited to Rome and signed a contract with the Constanzi Theater. Soon she went to the Opera de Paris and then to Scala of Milan.
Sayão's American career began in 1937 following a successful two-year tour in Brazil during 1935 and 1936. In New York she interpreted 12 roles in 13 seasons, including among others Violetta, Rosina, Gilda and Mimi. She was petite, not pretty and with a little voice, but she won the hearts of her public by the intensity of the emotions with which she interpreted her roles.
Her last presentation on a stage was in 1954. Four years later, however, at the request of friend Villa-Lobos she agreed to record Floresta Amazônica, conducted by the famous composer himself. After that she retired.
The musical piece that became her biggest success was her role in Brazilian composer Villa-Lobos's Bachianas nº 5, which was recorded in 1945. Sayão was Villa-Lobos's favorite interpreter. She became also famous for playing Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni.
Her last trip to Brazil was in 1995 when she was paid a tribute by Escola de Samba Beija-Flor, which chose her story to present during the Carnaval Parade. She participated parading on one of the floats. The singer had plans to return to Brazil for a last time on her 100th birthday in 2002 and had invited her long-time manager and friend Hazel Eaton to go with her on this trip. In an interview with daily O Estado de S. Paulo, Eaton revealed she was very happy with the recent release by Sony of her old recordings. She felt relieved for not having been forgotten by people after so many years, something that tormented her during the last few years.
In her last performance at the Rio Municipal Theater in 1937, she was intensely booed. It's been said that the jeering was orchestrated by jealous Gabriela Besanzoni Lage, a famous Carmen who couldn't accept being outdone by the diminutive Bidu. The singer didn't go back for tours in Brazil any more and when her singing career ended she gave up living in Brazil, buying her house in Maine.
Married twice—first with manager Walter Mocchi, 40 years her senior and then in 1935 to famous Italian tenor Giuseppe Danise, who died in 1963—she preferred to spend her time with her cats and playing cards with friends.
Energy
Brazilian
NightIt could have been much worse, but the biggest blackout Brazil ever had was bad enough. At 10:16 PM on March 11, the lights went out in 11 southern and central states, plus the Federal District, leaving more than 97 million Brazilians out of a 160 million population—including those from Rio and São Paulo, the most populated centers—without electricity. Those who thought the lights would come back on soon went to sleep or had to wait up to four hours. Had the disaster hit a few hours earlier during rush time the chaos would have been much greater.
What happened? The government, taken by surprise, took a whole day to find the answer. A lightning bolt hit a power substation close to Bauru, a city 220 miles northwest of São Paulo, disabling five electrical supply lines. The explanation was given by Mines and Energy Minister Rodolpho Tourinho who insisted: "A lightning bolt is an exceptional fact, there is no reason for doubting the reliability of the Brazilian electrical system."
More than anything Brasília's authorities wanted to dispel the notion that the blackout had anything to do with the privatization of the power system in the country. The sale of these state companies is an essential part of an agreement signed between Brazil and the International Monetary Fund to secure fresh _ and much needed _ loans for the country. Coincidentally, it was at the beginning of March that the private company Operadora Nacional de Sistemas de Energia took over government control of the country's transmission lines. "No, the privatization is not at fault," guaranteed the government. Au contraire, they explained, the accident proves that the privatization was necessary. The country is in need of more transmission lines and only the private sector has the money today for such an investment.
In Rio the military police placed 1,200 men in the streets to avoid looting. In São Paulo, traffic authorities announced they closed the city's tunnels to prevent assaults. In Botucatu, in the interior of São Paulo, obstetrician Émerson Domingos da Costa was in the middle of a cesarean delivery when the lights went out. Everything worked out fine, but everybody in the delivery room was very scared. "At that moment I imagined what the President would have done if it were his daughter," said da Costa later.
Seven thousand Cariocas (Rio residents) called Light, the company that provides electricity in the city, to complain about TV sets and other electrical devices that were damaged by the mishap. Not to worry. Firmino Sampaio, the president of Eletrobrás (the federal body in charge of energy and power) left it clear the next day that nobody would be reimbursed for their losses.
There were reports of robberies in almost every big city without electricity, but in São Paulo the number of murders fell by one third (from the average 15 to 5). That's because the bars were closed, explained the police. More than 60,000 people were on Rio's subway when lights went out. The evacuation operation required 200 Metro workers and lasted until 2:30 in the morning. Dozens of passenger, however, afraid of being assaulted in the dark streets refused to abandon the stations Estácio and Del Castilho, forcing transit authorities to take them home or to safer places in their vans.
Commenting on the blackout, Rio's daily Jornal do Brasil editorialized:
"Brazil left it clear that authorities are entirely unprepared to face a grave emergency situation. During the episode there was no coherent mobilization by the government. When the crisis was more acute the newspapers had a hard time finding the Mines and Energy minister Rodolfo Tourinho and nobody knew what had happened to President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
"Until Friday afternoon, no one seemed able to find a reasonable explanation for what had happened, although the government rushed to declare that the episode would not happen again. How they could guarantee that, before knowing the cause, is a mystery that should be investigated by the regulating body, the Agência Nacional de Energia Elétrica (National Agency for Electrical Energy)."
