and

a blog with cultural bulimia.

Thursday, March 31, 2005

Worried about the world's problems?

"Religious leaders met on Wednesday in Jerusalem in a united protest against a gay pride festival planned there in August."
The New York Times.

"Maybe bigotry is the answer to the world's problems."
MemeFirst: Did you hear the joke about us?

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

You read it here first.

The New York Times > Fashion & Style > Wearing Their Beliefs on Their Chests: "Fashions with spiritual messages are just the latest expression of religion as a pop phenomenon".

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

Blah, blah, blah.

 Saint images are in - think 'scapular' or 'undies' - no matter your religion: A nova onda dos santos.

"In Kenya, a 10-year-old elephant named Mlaika seems to think she's a truck."

Gothamist interview with Lady Bunny.

New Scientist: "13 things that do not make sense". Via kottke.

mirror, mirror...

...on the wall, who's the fattest?

Rosie O'Donnel sorta apologizes (apparently over the phone and thru bad poetry in her blog) to Kirstie Alley for questioning her statements on TV about her max weight.
no blog today
i thought
this am
mourning still

the phone
kirstie w/ hurt feelings
i am sorry
4 that

but not the joke
the comment
the truth
about myself
at 220 - now
formerlyROSIE: "the unedited rantings of a fat 43 year old menopausal ex -talk show host * -married mother of four- read at your own risk - my spelling sux".

Monday, March 28, 2005

Advertecture.

pic by towleroad: "Classic New York Advertecture"

Blonde joke.

The Blonde returns to her Doctor's to clear up something:

'Did you say Libra or Sagittarius?'

'I said Cancer!'

Cherries.

"Life is just a bowl of cherries.
Don't take it serious; it's too mysterious.
You work, you save, you worry so,
But you can't take your dough when you go, go, go."

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Banksy.

The New York Times take on Banksy: "Need Talent to Exhibit in Museums? Not This Prankster", including a slide show of him hanging his art in the museums

Easter weekend in the country.


The house, Gabi by the pool.


Road and Mountains.


'Downtown' Casa Branca: the sign says 'Budhist Temple'.

Thursday, March 24, 2005

Easter.

 Bowing to tradition as the world's biggest Catholic country, Brasil comes to a halt from today until sunday. It's the end of Lent and the green light to 'eat meat' again (whatever your interpretation of 'eat meat' is). Stripped of all its religious meaning, for most brasilians this is nothing more than an end-of-summer break and an excuse to eat an excessive amount of chocolate in the shape of Easter Eggs. I'm off to the country side, where I'll be working on a tan, in honor of the Easter Bunny whom we celebrate with this holiday - I think.

In celebration, my favorite Easter Story: "Jesus Shaves" by David Sedaris.

contemporary art.

 "An artist from the UK named Banksy went into four of NYC's most prominent museums -- the Met, the Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Museum, and the MoMA -- and installed four of his own pieces of art:

Dressed as a British pensioner, over the last few days Banksy entered each of the galleries and attached one of his own works, complete with authorative name plaque and explanation.

He says - 'This historic occasion has less to do with finally being embraced by the fine art establishment and is more about the judicious use of a fake beard and some high strength glue.' Banksy continues -'They're good enough to be in there, so I don't see why I should wait'

Staff at the New York Met discovered and removed their new aquisition early Sunday morning while Banksy's discount soup can print took pride of place in the MoMA for over three days before being torn down.


As of now, the other two pieces currently remain firmly in place.

Be sure to click through to see the photos. As far as I'm concerned, this is probably more interesting than most of whatever else is happening in the art world right now and instead of tearing it down, the MoMA should move it into their contemporary art collection."

via kottke.

repost.

same song, different heart

b
a
r
loneliness

Take that pipe out of your mouth.

"You said lots of things, Johnny!
Not a word was true, Johnny --
You lied from the moment we met!
I hate you so, Johnny!
I hate how you stand there
laughing at me!
Take that pipe out of your mouth, you filthy dog!

Surabaya Johnny. Is it really the end?
Surabaya Johnny. Will the hurt ever mend?
Surabaya Johnny. Ooh, I burn at your touch.
You got no heart, Johnny, but oh, I love you so much."

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

New York landscape.


Talk of the Town (Make That Whisper).

"Tiny drawings have peppered the pages of The New Yorker for decades, offering seemingly random visual relief from the gray acreage of the magazine's articles. They have depicted flowerpots and Chianti bottles, small dogs and pitchforks, among other things. But they have never, until now, had a narrative."
via The NYTimes.

Goiabada com queijo.

 I have gained 11lbs since I got to Brasil, 16 days ago. Mostly due to my gorging on Goiabada com queijo.

The future is bright, I gotta wear shades. Or better yet, watch my eating...

TIME for Concern.

black party 2005.

Thought Not has a small movie of this year's Black Party, the first one I have missed in years. The movie was actually made by Mr. JJ of Joe. My. God. fame. I still have not heard his version of the events - still recovering???

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

The view.

Hello, my name is Stephen and....

"I am, I admit, a stockaholic."
Stephen Roberts Personal Cheffing Blog.

Surly Snob is back.

His new blog is called Sample Blog.

Welcome back, you have been missed.

Book.

 I am currently absorbed by The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The book, aptly sugested by my sister, has filled in the blanks between my nothing-to-do's. And I have lots of them...
Barcelona, 1945-just after the war, a great world city lies in shadow, nursing its wounds, and a boy named Daniel awakes on his eleventh birthday to find that he can no longer remember his mother's face. To console his only child, Daniel's widowed father, an antiquarian book dealer, initiates him into the secret of the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, a library tended by Barcelona's guild of rare-book dealers as a repository for books forgotten by the world, waiting for someone who will care about them again. Daniel's father coaxes him to choose a volume from the spiraling labyrinth of shelves, one that, it is said, will have a special meaning for him. And Daniel so loves the novel he selects, The Shadow of the Wind by one Julian Carax, that he sets out to find the rest of Carax's work. To his shock, he discovers that someone has been systematically destroying every copy of every book this author has written. In fact, he may have the last one in existence. Before Daniel knows it his seemingly innocent quest has opened a door into one of Barcelona's darkest secrets, an epic story of murder, magic, madness and doomed love. And before long he realizes that if he doesn't find out the truth about Julian Carax, he and those closest to him will suffer horribly.

Living Will.

But in the Schiavo case, and in the battle to stop the Democratic filibusters of judicial nominations, President Bush and his Congressional allies have begun to enunciate a new principle: the rules of government are worth respecting only if they produce the result we want. It may be a formula for short-term political success, but it is no way to preserve and protect a great republic."
The New York Times Op-Ed: A Blow to the Rule of Law
Here I reaffirm my wish not to be kept alive with machines after my brain is dead specially if I will be used by conservatives to advance their political cause.

Monday, March 21, 2005

Family.

never in ny.

This past weekend I went to see "Ray" at a mall, here in Belo Horizonte with friends and afterwards we had dinner at "T.G.I. Friday's".

Can't say I had done that in 17 years of NY...

Miracaid.

"Seriously now, the root cause of this madness is a deeply religious society getting too rich for its own good. We now get the demand that medical care include unlimited opportunities for miracles, costs be damned. Would it not be better for lifeists to get separate health insurance — let's call it Miracaid, and it's private of course, as this is the American way — that guarantees doctors will never turn off their life support, no matter how braindead they manage to get?"
via MemeFirst.

The End of an Era in Times Square.

"The Gaiety Theatre in Times Square, Manhattan's last male strip club, has closed its doors after nearly 30 years of notoriety."
via towleroad.

Friday, March 18, 2005

Sex toys needed for party...

Reply to: anon-63226908@craigslist.org
Date: 2005-03-10, 7:27PM EST


Hi, and i'm looking for a quantity of used adult sex toys. Only toys that can be cleaned and are still usable, please. They are for an adult party in the works, so they must be usable. Invites are still available for those who deserve one.


it's ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
ok to transmit this posting into outer space



63226908

Thursday, March 17, 2005

The Irish are parading.

And for once I'm glad to be away from NY. But just for today. And BTW, I love the Irish.

Happy Saint Patrick's!

If I could speak English, I would...

Elis Regina



Considered the best Brazilian singer ever, she was to turn 60 today. Dead for 23 years now, it is still impossible not to hear her in the radio every day. Her daughter, Maria Rita (she is like her mother's re-incarnation, gestures & voice), released her first album last year to international aclaim. She even won 3 Latin Grammys. The NYTimes said: "The album has become a hit in Brazil, and rightly so".

polite fiction

Email from Mr. DS:

"One of my favorite concepts in anthropology is that of the polite fiction. It's something nobody believes, but we all pretend to because it makes life so much easier. My favorite example was of a Pygmy couple. Pygmy divorce involves quite literally breaking up the home: the couple tears apart their house (it's easy - the houses are made of leaves) and once it's down, the union is dissolved. One anthropologist was watching a long-married couple have a fight. It escalated until the wife threatened to leave, and the husband yelled something along the lines of "Fine!" and there was nothing the wife could do but start tearing down the house. She began tearing the roof off, clearly miserable. The husband looked wretched too, but at this point neither could back down without losing face and by now the whole village was watching.

Finally, the husband called out the Pygmy equivalent of "You're right, honey! The roof is dirty! It'll look much better once we get those leaves washed!" The two of them started carrying leaves down to the river, soon with the help of the whole village, and then washed and rebuilt the whole roof. When the anthropologist later discreetly asked how often one washes the roof, everyone looked at him like he was a complete doofus."

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

equal treatment.

"No matter how much opponents of same-sex marriage will try to say otherwise, Judge Kramer is not a radical liberal judge, wired on lattes in Haight-Ashbury. He's just now catching up to what the mayor and city council and state legislature - and courts from sea to shining sea - have known for years: that all Americans are entitled to equal treatment. Is that news?"

NYTimes Op-Ed.

Chop Suey

 From Towleroad:

"Today in the Michael Jackson trial items were presented that were found in a box at the foot of Michael Jackson's bed:

"Santa Barbara County sheriff's Sgt. Steve Robel showed items seized from Neverland during a Nov. 18, 2003, search, including a sex magazine called Teenage with a woman on the cover, a black-and-white image of a nude woman and a book called The Chop Suey Club by photographer Bruce Weber."

The relevance of the items was immediately attacked by the defense attorney Sanger, who seemed to understand the eroticism of young men in straw hats."

Anal sex is the new black.

"I'm translating "Belle de Jour" to Portuguese.

I'm having a few problems with the translation. (...) Hope you can help (or find somebody who can)
and I thank you very much for the trouble.

Yours
José
(note: no relations to this blog)

And here is what couldn't be translated:

(...)Page 107 : Anal sex is the new black.

Inexplicably not an internationally used phrase. How odd."

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Tomorrow is here.

"I feel wherever I go that tomorrow is near, tomorrow is here and always too soon"
Speak Low

It has been one week.

The trip down here was terrible. I had a stomachache on the plane and went straight to the airport medical clinic. The pain lasted most of this week and curtailed my movements even further.

Did I mention it's hot here?

The pace is slow but you do not need me to tell you that. I'm staying with my sister and her apartment is within one block of a mall (with a great food court, a cineplex and the best gym in town), an arthouse cineplex and a supermarket. And those are my new borders for now.

I have already seen a doctor.

It is nice to have family around. Unrequited love. Brazilian food. Rice and beans everyday. Lunch and dinner if I want.

And it's hot.

Nem tudo e doce no sucesso das exportacoes brasileiras. As balas Chita, que eram encontradas com facilidade nos menores botecos e nas mais exigentes confeitarias do Pais, estao em falta desde o inicio do ano no mercado interno.
Signs of the times: when I was a kid my favorite candy was this chewable pineaple-flavored one called "Chita" (yes, in honor of that monkey), ubiquitous in Brazil until they decided to export it. Apparently it is such a hit everywhere that they can't produce it fast enough and it disappeared from the market.

COME BACK LITTLE CHITA!

Saturday, March 05, 2005

Tchau New York, hello Itamogi.

Amazing mash-up.

"From DJ Earworm, a great sounding mash-up for your weekend.

Scissor Sisters' 'Take Your Mama'
Aretha Franklin 'Think'
The Beatles 'For No One'
George Michael 'Freedom '90' =
______________________________
'No One Takes Your Freedom'

It's not often that a mash-up comes along that works this well, particularly with four tracks in the mix. Well done."

via towleroad

Friday, March 04, 2005

Proud Blogdaddy.

As part of my goodbyes see-you-laters, today I had lunch with Mr. JJ, the man behind Joe. My. God.. He calls me his blogdaddy giving me more credit than deserved for him having started his blog.

Proving that great minds think alike (and usually have A.D.D.), we covered so much ground in 10 minutes (translation: gossip) that we made a pact not to blog about it. So sorry.

One thing, though: we both enjoy very much Bill in Exile, a blog based on letters exchanged between Scott and Bill, who is locked up in prison for selling methamphetamine to upper middle class gay white boys in New York City.

How am I?

“Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
Mark Twain

Looking forward to...

 ...spending time with my niece Gabi, who was born after I left Brazil.

So, after 17 years in the U.S., I'm going back to Belo Horizonte. Not sure for how long - I need to fully recover and I don't know how long it is going to take. It's scary. I'm no spring chicken, you know...

My state of mind.

"My memory is proglottidean, like the tapeworm, but unlike the tapeworm it has no head, it wanders in a maze, and any point may be the beginning or the end of its journey. I must wait for the memories to come of their own accord, following their own logic. That is how it is in the fog. In the sunlight, you see things from a distance and you can change directions purposefully in order to meet up with something particular. In the fog, something or someone approaches you, but you do not know what or who until it is near."
Umberto Eco

Thursday, March 03, 2005

On beauty and aging.

"Shakespeare wrote a lot about the power of beauty and the withering of beauty. As one pre-Botox sonnet went:
When forty winters shall besiege thy brow
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,
Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tattered weed of small worth held.
Shakespeare also wrote about narcissistic personalities and the treacheries of time. So I'm sure he would have been fascinated by the obsession of our modern culture with freezing the clock - and the face - with lifestyle drugs and medical treatments."
Maureen Dowd

Happy Birthday Mr. DF!

Thank you for being my friend.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

tia neusa, snow & ny.


Email of the day

"Hi Everyone,

First of all I want to apologize to all of you who were at Roxy last Saturday to hear me play that you had to experience first hand the unfortunate circumstance that occurred.

After being a resident deejay at Roxy for almost 6 years I am sorry to inform you that I decided to leave for good.
As much as I enjoyed playing for all of you, I can no longer accept the unfair treatment I received on a regular basis by promoter John Blair.
I've reached my limit with all his lies, shade, threats, disrespect and phoniness towards me AND my loyal fans.
No deejay in the world at any level in their career should have to feel forced to accept Blair's unprofessional attitude and behavior.
I am not the first Roxy deejay to experience this and I certainly won't be the last.
I will not compromise my artistic integrity anymore because of Blairs ego.

Now for the good news.
I am very excited to announce my new monthly SATURDAY NIGHT residency.
The party will be called "WORK" and it will be held at Club SPIRIT (NYC's most legendary space formerly known as Twilo).
My kick-off party will be on Saturday, March 12th and trust it will be a night to remember.
Further details will follow in the next days.

I want to thank each one of you who emailed me in the last couple of days to show me your love and support.

Thank You and see You all at "WORK" on March 12th.
Peter R."