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Pedra do Arpoador
If there is one place that can be pointed as the source of Rio’s cool, this is the Arpoador. The huge rock is situated in the beginning of Ipanema and means harpoon thrower in Portuguese; it is named...
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Gafieiras
Gafieiras have been a strange constant in Rio’s life. Strange is a strong word but in this case it is true, because they have been in a constant re-discovery process since the late seventies, the time...
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Mal Secreto
There are songs that are a like a magnifying glass to a period in time, Mal Secreto is one of them. It was written in the height of the censorship/dictatorship of the seventies by Jards Macale. It...
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Chico Buarque de Hollanda
Chico Buarque is a unanimity in Brazil: everyone in every generation, social class, or city will agree that he is good. If his work were in English he’d certainly be together with Bob Dylan and John...
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Ama de Leite
This is another amazing picture; beautiful, disturbing and revealing. The microcosm that opens up to us explains a lot about the foundations of Brazilian society. The woman is what was called an Ama...
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Motels: Where Rio gets naughty
The motel above is where the football star Ronaldo was embroiled in a confusion with a she-male prostitute, a news that hit the headlines of the soccer world a few years ago. This article is about the...
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The Dilemma of the Brazilian Revolutionaries
Above is the cover of one of the most important magazines in Brazil in the 50′s and 60′s, Manchete. The picture is of the familiar Che Guevara being awarded the Gra-cruz of honor by the President of...
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The book about Brazil that was missing: Lost Samba
Brazil – You know that the economy is doing well, that the next Olympics and the next World Cup will be there, you have heard about its Football, its Carnival and the crime scene. But is this enough...
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Vimana – the origins of Brazilian Rock
Johnny was an American/Brazilian friend, perhaps because of this and because he had two older brothers he had a more liberated life than myself; his parents allowed him to surf and to go to rock...
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The early gangster days of Computer Graphics in Rio de Janeiro – part 01
This was already in the nineties. I had come back from Europe after the storm of the Fernando Collor years to begin my career as a computer graphics artist. In my luggage was the strange experience of...
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Lost Samba – Chapter 03 – Part 02
They met Paulo through a common friend in London. He lived in Copacabana and convinced them to come over. When they did, it was love at first sight and they decided to move there. Brazil was an...
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Brazil and the worst of capitalism
With big investments pouring into the country for the 2016 Olympics and the next FIFA World Cup, Brazil is facing a new and dangerous cycle as the one begun with the construction of Brasilia around...
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Lost Samba Chapter 04 – Part 03
When Mum and Dad arrived, as Gilberto Gil’s song says, “Rio de Janeiro continued beautiful”. The Cidade Maravilhosa had the biggest urban forest in the world, so huge that sometimes helicopters spent...
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Lost Samba – Chapter 05/02 Mas Que Nada and body surfing
Bibi Vogel, my only Brazilian cousin, was a well-known singer and actress. Her fragile look, with green sharp eyes, dark lips and a hippy haircut, made her one of the muses of her generation. Her...
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Lost Samba – Chapter 14 – Binge gone bad in Teresópolis
Teresópolis was an hour and a half away from Rio in the mountains and many of my parents’ friends had houses there. We used to go up into those hills when I was a toddler and during one of our stays,...
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Lost Samba – Chapter 25/02 – Anguish in South of Bahia’s Paradise.
The return to Arraial d’Ajuda was an anti-climax. The paradise I had fallen in love with seemed to be another place and now its main activity was tourism. Electricity had arrived and the village had...
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Lost Samba – Chapter 27/02 – Easy Riding in Canoa Quebrada.
Fortaleza was the capital the furthest north that we went. We had gone so far because of a fisherman’s village called Canoa Quebrada (Broken Canoe), a must-go place on the easy rider’s route. After a...
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Version 2 coming soon
Filed under: Book Tagged: Book, book on Brazil, books, books on braazil, Brasil, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro
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Lost Samba, second edition launching this Sunday!!
The Second Edition of Lost Samba is being released this Sunday fully revised and with many cool additions. First as an e-book, the printed edition is coming out a few days later. Here is the link:...
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The book about Brazil that was missing: Lost Samba
Brazil – You know that the economy is doing well, that the next Olympics and the next World Cup will be there, you have heard about its Football, its Carnival and the crime scene. But is this enough...
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