From: Ankur Shah To: brazil-pro@gotog.net Date: Dec 20, 2004 dec 18th. some things that happened today, or recently well, today was a landmark/watershed/overthrow day for the restaurant "o bigode", with our first ever party of four. an american friend of ours and family -- ok, cheating, we invited them -- came and loved the food and left us with bright bits of conversation, their 45 year old marriage in progress, some hope for the new millenium. something about it being good and hard and thank the heavens they both weren't going through The Shit at the same time, so they had clean forearms to pull each other. or something. and yes, the He figure Was from sacramento and Did look like jerry garcia, and upon serious questioning ("um, excuse me, I was just, um, wondering, do you *like* the Grateful Dead) he kindly and broadly responded -- "I know I look a lot like Jerry Garcia, and I hell of admire the man... Difference being I took care of myself a little better and don't play music nearly as well..." holland went and marked us all. how many jokes about platonic philosophy shall be left unsaid? how many rivers left to cross? the official mr. mctieyre music school got its first kick in the balls as our young hero taught a tone-deaf indian how not to be himself; or rather, had me singing the barest outline of a scale after one week of wizardry. and no officer i was not cheating by watching the guitar fingerngs; he turned around to make that impossible. such a good teacher that he caught on to the fact I only knew tones matched because of the resonance, and intervened with a below between pupil and guitar. They recently called twilight (crepusculo) on the aratuba beach and carved palm trees in the sand -- still real somehow, outlines and indentations. We saw crabs run across them and I swear that plastic they were not, which leaves me with a sinister sinking, pathetically ignorant as I am about the animatronic angle. But then who here isn't accostomed to saying their prayers to a future diety? hunter s thompson and oscar acosta get mad props for making me think there is an america out there in here buried in a million heaving breasts, worth fighting for. amanda and i, stingy immigrant couple that we are, ran the numbers on the first half of the o bigode restaurant finance operation. out of the reckless largess of my initial 350 point (125 us dollar?) capital outlay, allocated mainly to classic ceramics flatware (90 points) and shitty aluminum cookware (150 points), and, of course, the luxuries of imported beans, we've generated enough profit (keep in mind there are neither labour nor overhead costs in this particular model) to pay 40% of the capital outlay. and the busy days of the tourist season loom ahead. which, to be honest, is looking more guffman (or godot, for you modern classicists) -esque by the day. first the hordes of beer-starved vegetarians layabouts were to arrive in mid-november. the three-day weekend came and went, leaving a rash of arrocha jingles in its wake, and somehow aratuba remained as tranquil (empty) and quaint (boring) as before. similar predictions contained the seeds of their own revolution on dec 1st and 15th. now there's the big christmas rush to prepare for, but i'd rather practice the bansuri than hold my breath*. doidao ("big crazy") came by today to remind me of why brazil is so twistedly unique as a culture. we're sitting on the stoop eating mango after mango (they're falling from the trees, they're carpeting the ground, they're heavenly and they're mine mine mine ours) and I ask him what's up -- his infant child just left for switzerland, care of its (his) mother, with no return ticket in sight. and there's no maconha available from here to caixa pregos. doidao, visibly bummed, confessing he didnt understand women or what was going to happen (with anything at all, nevermind the war), neanmoins came ouut with a distinctly brazilian and unquestionably honest "tudo bem". a level of "its all good" that was neither a denial of his bumming reality nor a facile attempt to forget it, but rather, it seemed to me, a centered looking past the floating ego happenings of the situation and arrival at Deeper Understanding that the machinations of the present aside, the Grand Keyboard of the Universe was playing a fine (if tinny) tune, and yes, it was All Good. Last Monday holland and amanda took karim and me to a town i'd never been to, large and incharge and called Itaparica (the islands namesake). We were in hot pursuit of a Deaf, Indian, Painter named, of course, Ram, whom they had either met or invented (along with the fact Itaparica is a mormon stronghold and there was nary a beer to be bought) the week before. His supposed studio being closed and knocking rather futile given our communicative constrictions, we skipped down to a red, white, and blue (the colors were fading, but not running) "Oficina da Arte". Where a woman who managed to be frenetic, sleepy, warm and welcoming -- a la fois -- sent her son to walk us twenty minutes out of town and into a nieghbordhood of incredible villas along the beach. As we waited To Be Let In I noticed a round beige fruit hanging from a tree whose trunk had been barbed and wired. It was indeed Sapote, infamous for costing something like 7$ each at the park-slope food co-op. And one hell of a status symbol. But the villa itself, once we were cleared by Security, was probably one of the most beautiful residences I've ever walked into, a former convent bursting with fountains, patios, courtyards. Its the artists retreat of a group called the Sacatar Foundation, who fund 5 artists at a time from all over the world to have a 3 month session working in Brazil, in full care and coddling. Sounded pretty good, over here at O Bigode. Later, when we finally met Ram and were en route to his studio, I pointed at his son's name on the piece of paper which was the fulcrum of our understanding. I meant to point at Nitin's age as an indicition that I wanted to know how old Ram was, but he misunderstood the question in a classically indian way, excitedly writing 2nd year. ME Mechanical Engineering. Makes me to wince to think of a paralell universe, a deaf version of my mom walking down a beach and lusterlessly scrawling "vegetarian cook" next to her only son's name. Ouch. Asi es. - ankur p.s. a couple weeks ago people were partying and pickpocketing in the streets for a feast I translate as Conception. which means the birth event -- miracle is as miracle does -- is probably nearing, so close I won't get to the anarchist fasttrack of the info highway before the weird nihilistic hybrid of santa and jesus pops its pink hairless head down your chimneys, palm trees, intercoms, etc. so merry christmas, from all of us here at o bigode. * note: a later conversation with slightly more lucid islanders has revealed unto me, slowly and painfully though having nothing to do epilepsy, AT ALL, that five years ago this place was minting money and swarming with tourists and since then the mayor and prefecture have been siphoning off lots of money (around 1 million points) and watching the island's tourist infrastructure wash towards the septic tank. which is to say there are no tourists offices or "welcoming" or "hospitality" or whatever new-age marketing term there is for "there's more than fishing on this island" anymore. and that's why the people are poor. and that's why nobody is here. and that's why, folks, amanda and i only open the restaurant on weekends.