cultural commentary from the desk of Don Shewey
“Almost Gone,” Graham Nash & James Raymond
“Miriam,” Norah Jones
“Fiction,” the XX
“Sooner or Later,” ZaZa
“Baby Come Home” and “Only the Horses,” Scissor Sisters
“Reason with Me,” Sinead O’Connor
“Periphery,” Fiona Apple
“Now I am an Arsonist,” Jonathan Coulton (featuring Suzanne Vega)
“Fjogur piano,” Sigur Ros
“Focus,” Nneka
“Rembihnutur,” Sigur Ros
“Swing Lo Magellan,” Dirty Projectors
“Boldness,” Panda Valium
“Show Me Love,” Robin S
“Soon Enough,” Aimee Mann
“Itchy Fingers,” Junior Boys
“Un Canto a Mi Tierra,” Quantic and His Combo Barbaro
“Turn Up the Radio,” Madonna
“Try,” the XX
“Winter Fields,” Bat for Lashes
“Today with Your Wife,” Jonathan Coulton
“3.6.9.,” Cat Power
“Aponte O Nao (Ready or Not),” Lauryn Hill (Heartbreak & Munchi mix)
“Sweet Sour,” Band of Skulls
“I Belong in Your Arms,” Chairlift
“When the Movie’s Over,” Twin Shadow
“Bird,” Panda Valium
“Good Morning Tucson,” Jonathan Coulton
“A Wall,” Bat for Lashes
“Hot Knife,” Fiona Apple
“Who Is It?” Bon Iver
AGING
Extreme old age is as lonely as God. It has no one to talk to.
— Violet Trefusis, Don’t Look Round
Aside from Adrian Tomine’s spiritually if not literally accurate depiction of Election Day in Sandy-smashed New York City (above), I was taken by three major features:
* Wendell Steavenson’s “Letter from Cairo,” detailing the disturbing backlash against women in post-Mubarak Egypt and the inspiring courage of the young women unwilling to shut up and stay home;
* Judith Thurman’s entertaining profile of Betty Halbreich, the crusty, truthtelling 85-year-old personal shopper at Bergdorf Goodman; and
*Alex Ross’s “Love on the March,” an intimately personal essay about several books on the history of the gay rights movement, most notably David Halperin’s How to Be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation. Sample passage: “As Halperin puts it, ‘every identity is a role or an act.’ it’s just that straight-male performance is granted instant authenticity. Super Bowl Sunday, seen from a certain angle, is a pageant as intricate and contrived as the annual invasion of the drag queens on Fire Island.”
Call it public art, graffiti, murals, or signage, I was frequently struck by the vividness and creativity of street art in Brazil.
Cupid’s Bar, which we frequented in Limoeiro, sat next to the Christ the Redeemer Driving School
Olinda
Sao Paulo
Jardims district, Sao Paulo
streetcar stop in Rio de Janiero
Rio de Janiero
Santa Teresa neighborhood in Rio
Lapa neighborhood in Rio
fortune teller in Rio
another eye opens 