Brennand

Francisco Brennand is Brazil’s greatest ceramic sculptor. Born in 1927 of a ceramic tile maker of Irish heritage. Francisco inherited the old tile works when his father died and started building his garden/museum. It is located in the northwest end of the city in a hilly jungle park. You drive out Av. Caxanga, a wide very straight boulevard w/ a median divider, which used to be the old trolley system. The Oficina Brennand is a complex of new and old buildings, temples, workshops, plazas, monuments, galleries, a theatre and a small restaurant. Brennand’s work is first surreal but draws heavily from Cubist, naïf/primitive, and modern schools. The grounds are covered with helmeted busts, sea serpents, long-necked horse heads, eggs birthing snakes and vultures, and satirical figures. All ceramic they are displayed on tiled walls and around bizarre fountains. You can wander for hours and not see everything. The gallery houses several hundred of his drawings and paintings the majority of which reflect his interest in prostitutes. As you drive up to the site you pass through an area of small hourly hotels with names like Love Nest, Casa de Amour and Ninja Motel [???]. A room can be had for 8.90 Reals or about $5.00 for an hour. I suspect Francisco was not at a loss for subjects. The painting and drawings of the girls are very erotic and reminiscent of Grosz, Picasso, Degas and Toulouse Lautrec.
We had another lounge act tonight, kind of Liberace without hair and hetero jokes. He wasn’t bad but he did use the same joke as the guy the other night. And they know each other and work together sometimes. We cross the equator tomorrow and I will no longer be a pollywog. Night, night.

Recife

At first light [about 5:30AM] the entire horizon is high-rise hotels not unlike the Pacific beachfront in Rio. You do not see any old buildings. No churches. Recife is flat; indeed some of it is below sea level. We are docking under a double rainbow that’s been there for almost an hour and only now beginning to fade. We side up to giant white silos that look long out of use. CEAGEPE [?] is stenciled large on several of the flat surfaces. Behind the silos is a double Quonset-type “hanger” belonging to SINDACUCAR. We are never out of sight of the sugar industry. H.Stern tents greet us at the gangplank. We are never out of sight of the jewelry industry. Our bus took us to the center of Old Recife where we visited a Franciscan Museum and the Golden Chapel. I did get a shot of the Crucifix inside the chapel but we were told not to photograph. The interior is carved and gilded and vary dark. There is a side chapel one can see through an ornate iron grate. Some type of catechism was being taught there [poor unsuspecting kids!]. The rest of the museum had tableaux of the life of St. Francis of Assisi. The mannequins are old and virtuous. They are dressed in real clothes. Many are very out of scale as if they were throw-aways from department stores and regardless of the “age” [child, teen, adult] they were painted to look like adults. It was a sad looking collection trying to be maintained on a shoestring budget. We then went to Republic Square to photograph some wonderful old public and govt. buildings. Charming statues of the muses ringed the fountain at the center of the square. In one corner was a good size Baobab tree with some remaining blossoms and fruit. Our next stop was the 5-Cornered Fort, which also housed the city museum. This was fun. They had a blown up aerial photo of the city to give you a good sense of where you were and then there were rooms containing artifacts from the various periods of Recife’s history. The most interesting were the old Dutch blue & white ceramics, early glass bricks and colorful tiles. The Fort is whitewashed so when you are outside you feel like you are in a solar oven. It was only about 90 degrees but the humidity was a killer. I don’t know how some of the older folk do it. Next stop Oficina Brennand.

I could live here.

When I stepped out on the deck I was startled by green of the sea. It was translucent and refracted like a peridot. [Oh, Michael, you’re so poetic.] There was a white line on the horizon and just above these beaches were green hills, cliffs, occasional towns and yacht harbors. I have been under the impression that Maceio was a small sleepy village. Not so; it is a huge city of some 800,000 souls. It’s the capital of Brazil’s tiny Algoas state. It is a fairly new city; there are old buildings but you see many more modern ones. There are SPECTACULAR beaches, the best I’ve seen. They stretch endlessly north of the harbor. The beachfront has many very nice hotels and apartment houses all looking very upscale. It’s a place for Brazilians to vacation so other than 30 tour busses from the occasional ship you see very few non-natives. It is very reasonable to live here, too. You can rent a very nice 3 bedroom flat for $300. The temperature rarely drops below 75F and it doesn’t rain too much. There are simply no seasons. I could live here! There are lovely modern shopping centers one of which was recently bought by Wal-Mart but they can’t change the name for 5 years. They have a very progressive local government and a lot is being done to restore and preserve the older buildings as well as cleaning up the polluted river to make the area more attractive for new residents. They have 2 enormous businesses there that employ thousands so they need to beef up their work force. There is a joke that says the locals are so laid back and stress free that it takes 5 months to die suddenly. I could live here.

Maceio and My Birthday

Well, I finally was successful in sending a couple of photos via e-mail but I am having trouble uploading them to the photo sites. Hopefully, what does get out there will be shared. I will continue to work on it although I have already used up most of my 250 minutes I bought on the 4th.
Well it’s the 7th and we are going to Maceio, Brazil. I am in the middle of the greatest 60th Birthday present ever! I am now 61 years old. Happy Birthday, Rick; Happy Birthday, Kathy. And thank you to all my incredibly generous friends.
Last night the live show was very good. Paul Emanuel from the UK performed old standards…It’s always OLD standards. The highlight was his tribute to Nat King Cole. He has a remarkably similar voice. I’ll post again once we return from our excursion.

Salvador de Bahia

It was hot and extremely humid when we left the ship this morning about 9AM. I did not sign up for an excursion [a mistake, in retrospect] so I set off down the road toward the Mercado Modelo and the Elevador Lacerda. The elevator has 2 cars that go up and down all day on the condition that they are near full or no one else is in sight. They have attendants so you can’t mess with the controls. It moves very quickly and you are released out of the back of the car. The building is on a large plaza inhabited by every type of barker vendor, huckster, cabby and the like. Then there are the Bahianas, the women of Candomble. Their beauty is magical. They come rushing toward you with their enormous balloon skirts and colorful headdresses and beads. Their arms are outstretched ready to embrace you if you don’t resist. Then you pay them for someone taking your picture. I don’t know if they actually practice Candomble but they must be there on the plaza whenever a boat docks. There must have been 30 or so moving from plaza to plaza [Bahia has a plaza on every other corner and anywhere from 1 to 6 churches on each] incase you want a picture with one of them in a different vista.
Then it started to rain, really rain, that warm heavy tropical rain without wind. Everyone ran for the churches for shelter [sanctuary?]; I stayed out in the rain and got soaked to my skin. I hope I can get some photos out there as the Ciudade Alto is remarkably colorful and architecturally diverse. I headed back to the ship as I fear I may be suffering from plantar’s faciaitis again. I didn’t put my insoles in my walking shoes. I hope that’s not what it is but just to be safe I signed up for a few bus tours instead of footing it everywhere. Better coddle it to see what develops.
Back at the ship I went up to the hot tub and soaked my feet for a while. It was nice to have the ship to myself [and a few others].
FYI: The self-serve laundromat costs $2.00 per load. You can only use their soap [it’s free] as they have strict rules about what they can put back into the environment]. The dryers are $1.00 per ½ hour. They provide an ironing board and irons for passenger use.
There will be more on the Ciudade Alto after I download the pictures. Wish you were all here with me.

Theatre Critic

The Queen’s Lounge is a traditional nightclub setting with cocktail tables three deep around the stage and plush loveseat tiers behind. The balcony has it’s own bar. The first program of the cruise was “Unforgettable” …in title only. It was a nice collection of songs from the 50s [maybe into the 60s] sung by four adorable youngsters who might have a grandparent old enough to remember. The band was mediocre and appeared not particularly happy in their lot. There was one costume change and occasional backup singers who lent nothing to the performance. I will admit I am very jaded musically and am probably being a bit harsh but how else do you establish yourself as the next great theatre critic if you don’t trash everyone. It was all very proper, nice, polished and sweet. Not a trace of “blue” humor or racy costumes. It was less than an hour in length but I can see it again in another hour. I need drink

First Day at Sea

On our first day at sea, I awoke at 4:30 and went for a stroll around the ship [no jogging]. It was humid, about 75 degrees and windy. It had rained and was going to again. It is now very overcast but I suspect we’ll have some sun later. I didn’t bring enough quarters to do my laundry! It takes 8. I’ll have to find the cashier; there must be one up in the casino. We just passed an enormous oilrig out here with no land in sight. I remember reading that they had discovered an oil-rich area here very recently and this is maybe the result. It looks brand spanking new!
I will use this relatively event-less time to reflect on a few subjects of interest to some of my faithful followers [Messianic complex, anyone?]
Cars: Brazil has an unusual automotive presence. The first thing I noticed was Renault, Fiat and Peugeot. I had all but forgotten they even existed. Can you still buy one in the States? They are everywhere in Brazil, especially as rentals. Most taxis were Fiats. I saw quite a few VWs, less, but plenty of Hondas and Toyotas [not a single Prius]. The major American car was Chevy, small generic looking ones and some similarly undistinguished Fords. Seat [Spain], Opel and Dascia were also common. Trucks and Busses were predominantly Mercedes and Volvo. There were many small elegant looking shiny black cars which are apparently “private cars” used by companies like H. Stern [Jewelers] to ferry their guests to demonstrations, seminars etc. The American popularity of silver and champagne and light bronze and even white does not play here. Black is king… and in this heat! Go figure.
Dogs: The cocker spaniel is everywhere and generally the largest dog you see in Copacabana and Ipanema. There are lots of smaller [poodles, yorkies, biches etc.] breeds. I saw a couple of “walkers” with 5 or 6 dogs in tow. Since everyone seems to go out for a stroll or run at some time during the day their dogs accompany them. No droppings… anywhere! And no one carrying little plastic bags! I don’t know how they do it but the streets and sidewalks appear free of canine “gifts.”
About every two blocks on the beach are stairways that lead to large, clean restrooms. They are well maintained by the beachfront merchants. What is it about out cities that we find it so hard to achieve this level of civic pride? Every morning you’ll see each merchant out front washing down the pavement, even scrubbing it, watering their planters, sweeping up the leaves and fruits that fell over night.
What I have been able to upload can be viewed at a site provided by my new computer: http://gallery.mac.com/myquay