OK Go!

Night And Day As I Go Away

Love It Or Leave It

São Paulo is not very smoggy and the beaches are all 3-4 hours away by car or 45 minutes my plane; of couse, one of these beaches - one with a 10 million metro area attached - is Rio! Imagine if L.A. were a 45 minute flight from New York, and you begin to get an idea. São Paulo, of course, is a state of mind, and is Brazil's center of everything from business to the arts; you won't get bored, there, particularly if you are fortunate enough to speak Portuguese.

In one breath São Paulo is and isn't walkable. It is, because there sidewalks and trees and the few huge freeways like 9 de Julho (pictured left) don't really block access. But since SP sprawls every which way, the distances are enormous. While walking the city is as physically possible as in London, another sprawling city, SP's charms are both more elusive and less varied.

I truly love the place, but I understand why it's not among the top Brazilian places a foreigner would want to visit - you'd be more dazzled by Rio's spectacular beauty, the Afro-Brazilian flavor of Bahia, the Amazon, Iguaçu Falls, the Pantanal marshlands, and the perfectly preserved colonial cities of Minas Gerais; and that's only the absolute show-stopping highlights - in the world's 5th largest and 5th most-populated country, the possibilities are nearly endless...

Viewed From Green

Sweet Freedom

In Your Head A Long Time

Bem-Vindo

That's 'welcome' in Portuguese - I should be arriving in São Paulo early this morning.

Here's one of SP's many sleek modern buildings, as lovingly photographed by my friend Emerson Gibin(i) as part of a Flickr set fittingly titled 'I Love São Paulo.'

Hey, it's the kid's home town. I love it, too, actually, it's sunny, exciting, cosmopolitan, and the people are both lovely and smart.

I'll be featuring, pre-posted, Emerson's São Paulo photos all week, adding my comments here and there when I have a brief moment...

A Tale of Two Countries (Off I Go)

Explore Fanny

Brother! (It's A Wild Love...)

This Is Transylvania!

The Eternal Mindshine Of The Spotless Sun

What The Financial Analyst Saw

Scottish and Sharp, Act Two

All Right Now, Baby It's A-All Right Now

You've probably heard it's that 'lesbian couple with kids meet the sperm donor movie,' which is like calling Gone With The Wind 'that southern chick lives through war and gets married three times film.' The one-sentence premise doesn't do justice to the depth and quality of the film, and in any case, a good film transcends its premise. I got past the idea of 'female boxer' flick and 'gunman avenging mutilated whore' picture to see the terrific Oscar-winning films 'Million Dollar Baby' and 'Unforgiven,' respectively..

'Kids Are All Right' is the triumph of a director/screenwriter (Lisa Cholodenko) who doesn't flinch at likeable but messy characters, and at the frictions and frustrations in the sinew of even the closest families. It's also a wonder of perfect casting and chameleon-like acting by veterans Annette Benning and Julianne Moore, who so completely inhabit the harder and softer halves of a lesbian couple that you could forget that the former is the female that tamed Hollywood's most notorious bad-boy womanizer (Warren Beatty). Mark Ruffalo is pitch-perfect as the laid-back dude who explores sudden parenthood when his sperm-donated-offspring seek him out..

But Kudos to 'Kids' wouldn't be complete without hosannas for the accomplished newcomers who play the couples' college-bound daughter and high-school-sophomore son, Mia Wasikowska and Josh Hutcherson. Both create authentic, indelible and very specific characters while perfectly capturing the awkwardness, tensions, and ambivalence of their age - she's bright and restless but shy and demure; he's not yet comfortable in his own skin, and hungering for some fatherly attention, the spark of curiosity that upends this family's existence, altering their dynamic and bluring their boundaries. Oh, just see it. Oh, and the music's terrific, too! Go Vampire Weekend and MGMT!

Stripes!

and went with JP's striped blue lovely futon sofa-bed...

Someone To Watch Over Me

Pieces of apple, orange, and grapefruit add such a kiss of sweetness to a bowl of greenery...


There's

my baby...


And here's the referenced song,

Sculptors of Tomorrow

Presidential Palace Pretend

The decor combines 60s post-modern with Asian sparsity... It manages to be be slightly gaudy without being lavish or even busy.. Holy Chinoiserie...

It's a poor Asian cousin of Brasilia or even Reykjavik... Later on I'll post shots of this building's antiquated 60s security and communications infrastructure...

Buddha Behind Bars

Do I Hear Four?

Bigger Than Your Head

I had a Chennai combination, the centerpiece of which is a dhosa bigger than your head...


Dhosas are crisp, savory pancakes with vegetable filling -in this case ground potato and spices.

Under the dhosa is Utthappan, a spiced lentil and rice flour pancak. Finally, malai kofta, a vegetable fritter in a rich, creamy sauce..


All gone! If only I didn't eat faster than a speeding bullet... It wasn't very expensive, either.. Only a little more than the corner diner...

Digital Keepsakes

Hey there, feeling under the (spectacular) weather, but still I blog. Today's thought: one man's sweet memorabilia is another's clutter. I once read that if you save physical objects for their nostalgic value, you might just as easily photograph them and discard them.


In this spirit, I took long-delayed pictures of some lovely party favors from the baby shower of our friends Janice & Marco back in June..

I ate this one right after photographing it, about an hour ago...


The baby, August Henry Diaz, arrived in three weeks later.. Here he is, next to the baby shower invitation.

No Can Do

History and wonder surround us, and we trudge by, deafened and blinded by pedestrian, workaday concerns! Perhaps I exaggerate, but a hundred yards eastward lies to Chelsea Hotel, where much Great 20th Century Literature was penned...
This includes Arthur C. Clarke's '2001: A Space Odyssey,' as I learned from one of the numerous plaques that adorns the venerable hostel's façade.


I wasn't at all aware that Clarke was a scientist invented communications satellites, that his 1952 book was used to convince President Kennedy to shoot for the moon, or that the Queen had knighted him... Reminder to open my eyes and ears, as overworked and congested as they may respectively be... Below, Kubrik's classic, chilling rendering of computer Hal's 'No Can Do' decision, referred to on the above plaque, much to the dismay of Kier Dullea's 'Dave'..

Sleepy

Mad Money

Nästen Normål

The Next Level

Arcade Fire have painstakingly crafted three memorable concept albums, 'Funeral,' 'Neon Bible,' and 'The Suburbs,' each of which is diverse, lyrically sharp, and musically adventurous.

Road Marker

Unflinching and Unforgettable

The magnificent cast blew me away, and have won wide acclaim, even though they are not the original cast. It's led by Marin Mazzie as the troubled mom; Mazzie brings decades of Broadway and cabaret acumen to the table. She also brings her real-life husband, Jason Danieley, to play her long-suffering but ever loyal and hopeful spouse.
The lyrics are sharp, the music is good and all over the place - from show tunes to rock, soul, and singer/songwriter confessional, it all works, and sounds great, but you're so deep into the play and its characters that you can almost forget they're singing.. The stunning sets render this family's home as a frame of black poles and grids with few boundaries and a luminous blue-purple background. The musicians are built into the dark corners of the house, seen but not seen. I hope I've intrigued you enough to check out the clip below...

Here's a great scene that gives you a flavor of the show's delicate balance of stark realism and occasional sardonic humor..

Dilma and Lula!

Lula for some reason reminds me of my Dad - I mean that as a big complement, and Dad would certainly take it as one, as Lula was a factory worker who became a union leader and tried 20 years until finally elected President. He's presided over the second consecutive decade of Brazil's rapid growth and increasing prosperity - 20 million people joined the middle class!