sábado, novembro 10, 2007

Bar da Boa

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Karla Caprali
“There is no joy that tastes as sweet without the bitterness of sorrow, and no passion that burns eternal without the cold steel hands of reality pulling it back to earth.”

     Karla Caprali.

Karla CapraliKarla CapraliThis image appeared in the Jornal do Brasil a few days ago, maybe a week ago, and caught my eye. Not because it is 'art' or good or what ever! - but because it seemed to reveal to me some of the predicament of middle and upper-middle class angst in a world without categories, and the vacuous sentimentalism this engenders.

I drink a regular amount of Antartica beer - Skol gives me a headache ... nothing more to it. Except maybe the trucks rolling by with "Bar da Boa" written on the side; and the ubiquitous posters seen from bus windows of Juliana Paes offering a glass of Antartica with a smile. (Antartica in portuguese is 'Antártida' with a 'd'.)



The two little white things in the brand are apparently penguins ('rótulo com dois pingüins') - though they look like can-openers to me.

Anyway, her name when I discovered it - Karla - brought on Homulka and Bernardo; and the Bar-da-Boa took me to Diane Keaton & Richard Gere in Looking for Mr. Goodbar. (Googling around this dredged up a chocolate bar of the same name of course ... and the usual porn, and that famous line, "Wanna see what a Mr. Big looks like without the chocolate?" of Joe Hall & the Continental Drift.)



A few links: Antartica Beer, Companhia de Bebidas das Américas (which makes both Antartica and Skol), Juliana Paes happens to also be the Queen of the Drummers - A Rainha da bateria for the G.R.E.S. Unidos do Viradouro Samba School - maybe later I will find out what G.R.E.S. stands for(?)



So I thought, with all this legion of cynical un-meaning I wonder if the beer that I really do like, Therezópolis Gold, is in the same boat? More-or-less it turns out: Cervejaria Teresópolis ... A Cervejaria Teresópolis, uma divisão industrial da tradicional Bebidas Comary; not as big as Ambev but wants to be.

Two semi-serious thoughts as well:

1. The boys busted some illegal charcoal-makers (some pictures and text) - good news I guess for environmentalists of a certain sentimental stripe. They destroyed 23 furnaces. I found myself wondering who these people (more likely families) were? They didn't catch anyone in any event. I would guess they were poor people - I could be wrong. Nonetheless it seems like penny ante stuff - nothing like 15 billion in iron ore. The movement in the next decades will be towards postcard prosecutions against the (relatively at least) poor while the multi-national lemmings do what they like (this is the connection to Vale do Rio Doce in 2. following).



2. The MST have apparently stepped over the double line - an Editorial - Sem-terra atacam o Código Penal yesterday; and this a few days ago: MST volta a ocupar ferrovia em Carajás. Stopping the rail line in Carajás, owned and operated by Vale do Rio Doce to get steel ore to the export market. Even Lula, who likes these guys for obvious reasons, is having to step back. Fifteen billion in nine months of operation? Somebody must have missed a decimal point eh? - but that's what it says ... "... lucro de R$ 15,6 bilhões nos nove primeiros meses do ano."

Your bog-standard Brasilian middle-class what not has already been brainwashed into viewing the MST as 90% 'grilheiros' - just another scam(?) by the poor to get some land (?!), say what?

Keep in mind that things develop more slowly south of the equator - the image of Karl Marx for example still conjures deep fears - which context went out of vogue decades ago in the north (it seems to me). A-and the MST flag is red eh?

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