Sunday morning sunshine

The title to this post simply reflects the reality of the sun pouring into the room this morning, a welcome change to the past few cloudy days here in Rio. It has been cloudy, cool, and damp, which is normal for this time of year. But so is sunny, relatively dry, and pleasant, like it promises today. T and I got up early, and finished the 500-piece puzzle of Venice. It is already 9:30, and the rest of the gang is still sleeping, so I have a little free time, hopefully enough to add a few more photos and commentary, before I am called upon to make pancakes.

My blogpal Peter the Other added a comment to my last post, to the effect that he is one of the few people in the world who has actually seen a live performance of Gomes' Il Guarany, the most famous Brazilian opera (in the Italianate sense of the term). This reminded me that I had one additional photo relating to opera in Brazil, which I've placed at the top of this posting. It is a reproduction of a postcard of the Theatro Amazonas in Manaus. It was built in 1896 at the time of the rubber boom, and it was, I believe, the inspiration for Werner Herzog's film Fitzcarraldo. This postcard was reproduced in another one of those impressive, glossy, and highly cultivated monthly magazines that I mentioned in my last post. This one, called Nossa Historia ("Our History") is published by the Biblioteca Nacional (National Library) (this again I have to qualify with an "I believe"--as this blog consists of my own off-the-cuff ramblings, and I do not have time to footnote all my assertions, I hope that readers will understand this, and forgive the errors of fact that will inevitably appear), and is thus comparable to the North American magazine Smithsonian. I try to collect all of them--they are beautifully published--and highly recommend visiting their website (see their website, http://www.nossahistoria.net/).

In Peter the Other's comment, he also referred to mass-communication and the pushing of corporate products. This reminded me of another photo I had taken this past week, of some graffiti near the intersection of Rua Jardim Botânico, and Rua Pacheco Leão. As you can see here, it is a colorful drawing of three young men, in a hip-hop attitude. The bearded figure on the right wears a T-shirt that says "Joy Division," and holds a red book that says "Marcuse" on the cover. Marcuse, of course, is a reference to Herbert Marcuse, the German-born University of California professor and "Frankfurt School" philosopher, who was an inspiration for the counter-culture movement of the 1960s. He was a great critic of mass media and promoted the theory of "false consciousness." I have to cut short now, because pancake duty has called! I must bow to the demands of the masses!