Gaijin

Another oldie that had unfortunately disappeared

It seems that Brazilian soldiers are being successful in their first peacekeeping assignment ever, in Haiti. They are succeeding where many others have already failed before - but how?

Here’s the trick - they are being… Brazilian. Now, a Brazilian essentially likes three things in life that you can do “de roupa” (with your clothes on): football, music and making new friends. And that’s exactly what they have been trying to do in Haiti: making friends with locals, being kind and open and warm and laughing as they have been with me here in São Paulo. They have organized an informal but passionate Haitian football league, they bring over regularly successful singers to perform on stage in the country, organize huge parties.

Although all that seems more of a Club Med GO’s job than an Army GI’s one, it has worked so well that the United Nations are now studying the model to identify best practices that could be transfered to other areas in the world.

Now I might be slightly pessimistic, but do you imagine US soldiers making friends with Iraqis and playing football with them? OK, maybe the fact that they can’t play football doesn’t help, but let’s say baseball - they have done so in Japan in 1945, and it has worked well enough to make Japan the only other country in the whole world to have a professional baseball league. But today? In Iraq or Afghanistan? And besides the sports part of the plan, I do not really see Eminem or Britney Spears flying to Kabul for a gig.

Why is there such a monstrous difference? What makes Brazilians so happy to live that they can convey their good mood even to Haitians in the middle of a civil war?

They like to say it’s in their nature because of their strong indigenous roots - indigenous were living a simple, relatively lazy life before the Bandeirantes came. And the Bandeirantes apparently had a less devastating impact than Conquistadores in the hispanic area, or Far West pioneers in the northern sub-continent. Of course they ran the occasional massacre as well as their homologues, but most of the time they preferred to have sex with the Indios rather than killing them, and that made a hell of an interracial culture and society over time.

There might also be a couple of external factors such a higher solar exposure and generous daily helpings of beans, which are as charged in serotonin as an entire Nutella jar. Also helps that “there is no sin below the Equator”, as they like to say, which leads to a generally richer sexual life and a certain tactility in all types of human relations.

And there’s music. Far from being just a consequence of the Brazilian way of life, music is more probably one of its root causes. Emotions and passions are sublimated in such an unbelievable variety of rythms, melodies, dances and lyrics that every day life just feels better - routines lighter to bear, obstacles easier to overcome, sadnesses and saudades blurred and definitely shorter.

As I can’t really play an instrument, nor football, I’ll have to concentrate on other aspects of “being Brazilian”. I’ll cook a feijoada tomorrow.

Actually, from a few days ago. I had written this post the day after general elections in Italy. Then it disappeared.

To avoid depressing comments on general elections in Italy, I’ll rather write a short note on a major piece of news here from South America.

President Hugo Chavez has banished The Simpsons from Venezuelan television, because the show would provide a “bad example” to children.

It has been replaced with Baywatch

Another post that had disappeared for spam reasons…

New photos on my Gallery webpage:

• A few photos from my birthday dinner at home
• Photos from Salvador and Morro de São Paulo, Bahia
• …and minor updates to the surfing album

Ieri è comparso uno striscione in mezzo alla Faria Lima, che significa più o meno la Fifth Avenue di SP. Con i grattacieli, le banche e anche Tiffany’s. Eccone la traduzione.

“Si ringrazia Sant’Espedito per la grazia ricevuta. Dio è troppo dieci!”

Seduto al tavolo da pranzo, un posto che di solito non è il mio.
Dopo una selezione di musical, da Cats a Sweeney Todd, adesso Carmen Consoli canta con struggente delicatezza un vieux tube di Serge Gainsbourg.
Di fronte a me le due matte. E una candela accesa. Accanto alle carte disposte in uno schema arcano.

mezz’ora prima
“Carlo”
“Eh”
“Stavi dormendo, vero?”
“Vero”
“Vestiti e scendi”
“Manco se mi spari nei piedi”
“Allora veniamo noi?”
“No”
“Ma J. ha avuto un incidente! Si è schiantata contro un autobus!”
“Minchia. Cioè, insomma, vi aspetto, dove siete?”
“In portineria. Fatti un caffè”
[…]
“Che è successo, J., l’autobus…?”
“Quale autobus?”
“Ma S. ha detto al telefono che…”
“Mi ha telefonato il mio ex marito da Londra. Arriva qui tra quindici giorni”
“Cazzo, altro che autobus, questo è un tram, e di quelli doppi”
“E quindi ora S. mi farà le carte”
“Qui in casa mia?”
“E dove altro?”
(a me sono venute in mente decine di altri luoghi in cui avrei preferito che facessero le carte all’una e mezza di notte, compreso il centro esatto dell’autostrada dei Bandeirantes e se possibile senza mettere catarifrangenti)

“Sai che da quando vi conosco sto rivalutando l’opzione di prendere psicofarmaci? Di quelli forti, dico”
“Fai il caffè”
“L’ho fatto. L’ho anche bevuto. Altrimenti non vi avrei aperto la porta”
“Allora adesso beviti una birra e rifai il caffè. Lo voglio pure io”

Mi alzo, cammino per la stanza. S. parla della carta della Divina Volontà, pare sia cosa seria e possente. Ogni tanto consulta un pezzo di carta consunto - degli appunti, una guida, un bignamino della cartomanzia.

Abbraccio la mia mucca di peluche, quella con la sciarpa e una bruciatura di sigaretta sulla zampa destra (stesse responsabili…). Non mi capita spesso di abbracciare la mucca, ma in questo contesto, cosa volete che faccia un gesto insensato in più. La guardo negli occhi e le dico “Ci sono due persone sedute a tavola che fanno le carte con una candela accesa, io sto parlando con te che sei una vacca di peluche e non è una allucinazione, sai, sta succedendo veramente”.
“Oi Carlo, sentimi bene. Queste cose in Brasile succedono. Vedi di abituarti in fretta, se vuoi rimanere per un po’”.

Caro amico ti scrivo, così mi distraggo un po’
e siccome sei molto lontano, più forte ti scriverò

Caro Fred,

ti scrivo per raccontarti la mia serata di ieri. O forse no, in realtà è solo una scusa (né migliore né peggiore di tante altre che avrei potuto trovare) per riflettere un po’.

Ti scrivo in italiano, perchè in italiano non parliamo da troppo tempo. Ti scrivo qui perchè mi piace immaginare che quello che scrivo su questo blog potrò rileggerlo anche tra qualche anno. E tra qualche anno ricostruire la storia di questi mesi, di un periodo di preparazione a scelte importanti.

La serata di ieri, dicevo. Sono stato ad una festa organizzata da due colleghi di lavoro. Abitano in un appartamento di proporzioni semplicemente incredibili per un Europeo, con una terrazza e una piscina all’ultimo piano di un grattacielo. E ogni tanto invitano un centinaio di persone per una serata.

Vedrai le foto, probabilmente, non appena riuscirò a mandartele. Mi vedrai goffamente alle prese con il forró, con una entusiasta e pazientissima “maestra” nordestina. Vedrai facce per te sconosciute, ma che per me cominciano a far parte di una quotidianità rassicurante e amichevole - quella stessa quotidianità da cui sento allontanarsi irreparabilmente alcuni dei nostri amici più cari a Parigi. Non sai nemmeno chi siano Fernanda, Viviane, Marco, Fabio, Romulo, André, Branca, Henrique o Sheila. Ma nel mio universo sentimentale stanno a poco a poco sostituendo la “famiglia” parigina, sempre più lontana, sempre più distante.

E’ naturale, è naturale anche questo, ne parlavamo qualche giorno fa. L’assenza di quotidianità affievolisce i rapporti personali e silenziosamente uccide quelli meno solidi. Una sorta di selezione naturale - necessaria, probabilmente, ma non per questo meno crudele. Solo, inevitabile. E dolorosa.

Quello che non può stare in nessuna foto è l’assurdo di certi dialoghi.

Penso per esempio al dialogo col palermitano-paulistano, che è nato qui, però ha studiato giurisprudenza in via Maqueda e ha uno zio che fa l’elettrauto vicino casa mia. Parlavamo di pane e panelle, arancine e ravazzate come se fossimo a Mondello.

L’improbabile scambio di battute con Sheila:
“Allora la cena europea la facciamo sabato prossimo?”
“No, c’è il feriado di lunedì, è Tiradentes, partiranno tutti”
“E tu che fai?”
“Non lo so, tu?”
“Niente. Partiamo pure noi”
“Andiamo a Salvador”
“C’è la spiaggia?”
“Certo che c’è.”
“Ci sono cose antiche di qualunque genere?”
“Ci sono”
“Allora andiamo. Fai i biglietti”
(li ho fatti, i biglietti, e il 18 sera saremo a Salvador da Bahia, anche se ci siamo visti due volte nella vita)

E poi quella conversazione con l’avvocata ubriaca, rimasta chiusa in bagno un quarto d’ora e quasi caduta in piscina… mi spiegava che a trentatrè anni deve sbrigarsi a fare un figlio, magari cominciamo a lavorarci subito che ne dici (mi ha salvato Fernanda, che stava assistendo alla scena come se fosse a teatro e che mi ha portato via con una scusa qualsiasi).

L’assurdo, dicevo, l’assurdo di una lunga chiacchierata con l’austriaco Martin, gallicizzato quanto me e adesso altrettanto tropicalizzato, con cui confrontavamo esperienze, difficoltà ed entusiasmi delle due integrazioni. Abbiamo lo stesso accento indefinibile, in francese, io e Martin. Quell’accento che sembra meridionale ai settentrionali e settentrionale ai meridionali. L’accento che ho rubato alle persone cui ho voluto bene in questi anni, senza discriminanti geografiche. Abbiamo ancora gesti ed espressioni francesi, che fanno ridere i brasiliani. Però in portoghese lui parla con un accento austriaco, e io con un accento italiano.

E i venti minuti musicali con la nordestina cui piacciono le canzoni italiane tacky, e che sa cantare io che non vivo più di un’ora senza te, la sa tutta, anzi l’ha proprio cantata tutta per intero, e ha continuato con Roberta ascoltami ritorna ancor ti prego con te ogni istante era felicità ma io non capivo non t’ho saputo amar (non preoccuparti se non le hai mai sentite - sono canzoni degli anni sessanta, nella nostra generazione le conoscono in pochi anche in Italia).

Penso che ti divertiresti molto, a vivere tutto questo. Sapresti approfittarne ancora più di me, cogliere tutte le occasioni, assaporare istante per istante. Io sto facendo del mio meglio per superare l’handicap di una vita sociale massacrata da tre anni di lavoro matto e disperatissimo. Non posso considerarmi interamente guarito, ma senz’altro ad un ottimo stadio di convalescenza.

E d’altra parte sono sicuro che stai vivendo esattamente le stesse esperienze in Norvegia. Non è il paese specifico che ci stravolge, credo, ma il fatto stesso di viaggiare con una curiosità e un appetito da bambini.

Un abbraccio,

—
Carlo

E se quest’anno poi passasse in un istante
vedi amico mio, come diventa importante che in quest’istante ci sia anch’io
L’anno che sta arrivando tra un anno passerà
io mi sto preparando … è questa la novità

This post is about nothing.

Which does not mean I have nothing to say - no, it’s about nothing as a concept. It’s about the fact that nothing, actually, is great.

Let me explain.

First of all, what’s great about “nothing”, is that it can mean “everything” at the same time - as in the expression “nothing special”. How’s life in Brazil, what are you doing these days? Oh, you know, nothing special. Which is a lazy way to say that all is so special, so magic, so overwhelming that you’d not know where to start, and that you’re sort of getting used to all these wonders as part of your everyday life.

The second “nothing” is what I have on my list of worries and concerns. I can’t remember any other moment in my life where my miscellaneous todolist has been this empty. I have nothing that I have to do, nothing I’m late with, nothing to worry about. Scary, huh? Never happened before (I mean, in recent life - let’s say in the last ten to fifteen years), so it took me some time to figure out what exactly this sensation was. Having an empty todolist means you can spend a whole afternoon reading on your hammock without the guilty sensation of having lost some precious time. It means you can walk around without a precise destination or goal. It means you can wake up late on sunday because of a long saturday night out, and still feel it’s OK, you have all the time you want to go to the gym, to read a comic, to write and tidy up your pictures (which is why you’ll find some on Gallery, as usual). You can even write postcards as if you were on holiday.

The fact that this country has been able to push this blissful nothingness into my head is not that surprising. They’re a happy-to-be population, and they’re contagious. What’s odd, is that the infection went that fast from zero to terminal state - I’ve even been strolling around in bermuda shorts and havaianas, which is close to be in disguise for someone who was used to long trousers and knee socks even in August and whose favourite footwear on the beach were usually a pair of old Tod’s loafers.

The only explanation I’ve been able to come about up to now (thinking about nothing does not mean shutting neurones off - it means your mind’s free to wander around with a child’s curiosity) is that the difference between Brazil and Europe mainly lies in the notion of “appropriateness”.

We’re busy all the time trying to categorize everything in terms of what’s appropriate and what’s not. Is this the right place and time for such a behaviour, for such a phrase? Am I appropriatedly dressed? Would it be appropriate if talked to her? What would be the appropriate date to organize a dinner with friends? Is it OK to wear this colourful tie or is it too much? Have I spoken enough in that meeting? Have I spoken too much? Have you seen her new outrageous boyfriend? Maybe I shouldn’t do that. Please respect the line behind the counter. Is this the right moment for such a major professional choice? What’s the ideal age to have children? Is two a reasonable number or should I plan to have more?
Chase: How would you feel if I interfered in your personal life?
House: I’d hate it. That’s why I cleverly have no personal life.

All this simply does not happen down here. Appropriateness has been cleverly replaced by good will and good faith - as long as you make your best efforts to be a decent man who helps other decent men around, you’re definitely doing the right thing. Adapting to Brazil is essentially about learning how to be good. Having a social or personal life is not even a point - it’s obvious. I’m even thinking about replacing Greg House as a role model - only, I still don’t know with whom.

Literal translation of my latest homework in Portuguese. Both because it saves me the effort of re-writing the same stuff and because it may give you readers an indirect perception of how I’m progressing in the local language. You will notice I still can’t write as I would like to - but I’m confident it will come with time.

Last Friday I forgot my homework papers in the office, in São Paulo, some 130 km far away from here. If I had brought them along, I’d have done the essay that my teacher assigned me. Nug I haven’t. So I will write something on this weekend, which is unfortunately even harder for me. It’s harder because I have got hundreds of ideas and sensations in my head right now, all of them trying to get out and be laid on this piece of paper or maybe on my blog - but all of them also being complicated and a bit confused, even before the language barrier.

If I were writing in Italian, French or English, I could tell with good enough precision all the richness of thoughts, events and emotions of these two days. In Portuguese, it may already be a major result to tell about facts, in the same order in which they happened.

We had established a departure hour at eight pm last friday. As an adopted Frenchie, of course, I thought that eight pm meant eight pm, and I was ready at eight. Not quite the idea. At about nine thirty we started discussing about the remote possibility of leaving, in some future time not yet fully specified. After discussions, shopping, oil, street food and other preparation activities (in a reasonably broad meaning for the word “preparation”) we managed to leave São Paulo at about midnight. Heading to Joanopolis, in the countryside, to spend the weekend in a colleague’s country house.

We spent all the time - night and day - talking about everything and nothing, playing “sinuca” (snooker - another funny word that I’ll add to the same list as “uísque” and “maiô”) and actually drinking a little too much.

Those have been the hardest days since I arrived in Brawil, from a communication standpoint. A true permanent excercise, with extremely intense moments: I don’t think there’s something tougher than playing drinking games in a foreign language.

But they have been the most enjoyable ones, as well. Not only for churrasco, which was excellent, nor from snooker that I found out I like quite a lot - what I’ll bear in mind is the sensation of being at last “at home'’ here in Brazil, circled by new friends, in a new “routine” that’s starting to feel every day more and more natural.

Of course I miss my European friends enormously. I miss them all so much that all the time I went on thinking “Pity they’re not here, they’d love this place”. But I don’t think I can keep missing my previous life for long: it wouldn’t be healthy and would not help to integrate here. Europeans will wait for a year. Now there are new friends here, who are part of a different life that I shall not compare to the other. I’ll have to open up more with them, and accept this fact as a new challenge and a winning trade off: initial difficulties with distance in exchange for an entire universe to discover.

Certi orrori arrivano anche in Brasile.

Casomai non bastassero tutte le altre, l’inno del nuovo partito del Nano è una ragione più che sufficiente per non votarlo.

Maybe I should start from their warm, friendly welcome. Or else, I could describe the apartment building and neighborhoood I should now start calling home.

But I’ll rather start from prejudice. From a couple of ideas - or rather sensations - inherited from my last trip down here.

I was a bit younger, that’s a fact, and had seen a whole lot of world and cities less than today. So I stopped at the very first level of it - a huge, unmeasurable city of little or no charm, with an unsafe, almost scary environment.

Well, it is not. São Paulo has the charm of the millions of people living here and making it a dynamic, diverse, sophisticated and funny place to be. There are countless restaurants, clubs, bars, museums and art galleries, as many theaters as in Broadway and a truly multi-ethnic and multi-cultural environment. Sort of a larger, hotter New York with Portuguese replacing English and tropical rains replacing snow.

By the way, my Portuguese’s getting better every day. I already managed to talk my way through an office meeting (”please say a few words to introduce you to the crowd!”), some essential shopping (”what kind of dishwasher do you need, Carlo maravilhoso?”), a hot water shortage in my apartment (”are you sure you switched the boiler on?”), a welcome lunch (”so, how did you end up in São Paulo?”), countless taxi rides (”what number did you say?”), subscription to the local gym (”what kind of package are you looking for?”), and most of all, six hours at the customs (”are you sure this Mac Mini isn’t new? It really does look as if you were trying to smuggle it, sir”).

I know. I know what I have written and I also happen to know what it means. Subscription to the local gym. So what? New life, new habits - a bit less cigarettes and a bit more sports. OK, seriously. Entirely quitting smoke is impossible when you have a hammock on your balcony. And as for sports, well it’s summer down here, and it keeps being summerish some 11 months a year. Well I currently look a bit like a panna cotta. So before I start working on the colour part of the problem, I’ll need to improve texture and consistency. Had you seen them running around Ibirapuera park, all in an amazing shape, you’d understand my embarassment.

The second element of prejudice was (and to some extent still is) personal security.
Now, there is definitely a higher risk to get mugged here than in Basel or Stockholm. And one might find it safer to stroll around the centre of Tokyo than the Centro of São Paulo. But I’ve never lived in Basel, Stockholm or Tokyo, after all. I was born in Palermo and have spent a reasonable amount of time in other large cities - so it’s just a matter of being slightly more careful than before: no expensive watch, money in different pockets, all my efforts into looking as “local” as I can. According to my landlord, I already do look Brazilian enough - only have to practise accent, suntan, pecs&abdos and vocabulary.

As for vocabulary, Brazilians seem all keen on teaching me, from the building concierge to shop assistants. I got into Tok&Stok a couple of days ago (Brazil being the only IKEA-less country in the whole wide world, I had to find a local replacement) and I realised I had no idea how to ask what I needed from a shop assistant. Never mind: one of them followed me all along the tour and provided words to translate what I scrapped on my notebook, mimed or pointed at with my finger. It soon became a funny game - we went around, I kept pointing, and he explained: “mirror, fork, cushion, carpet, cupboard, teapot, colander, drawer, bookcase, TV rack” (a rack is a rack in Portuguese as well, only pronounced “rackee” because they are unable to end words on an explosive consonant sound).

It made me 25 years youngers, somewhat. When I was one, I still did not say much - according to my family, I was waiting to be able to form full proper sentences, because that’s what I’ve done when I at last started speaking. So before I started actively speaking Italian, I went around with my father and pointed my finger at things - flowers in the garden, household appliances, whatever. “Nomenclatura”, he called that activity, building up my vocabulary before actually using it.

I just have got slightly less time, right now. And no dad holding me in his arms to walk around and fingerpoint.

It only lasted five minutes or so. Maybe ten.
And it was in portuguese, all of it.

So that’s it - just five minutes to explain me that no, there is nothing wrong with you coming down here, it’s not us it’s them, we’d love to see you here soon, if you still want to come.

Five more minutes, then, to book a ticket. And a full week to prepare - I’m leaving next wednesday, five minutes after 10am.

Five or six friends to say goodbye to, five minutes to say goodbye to an unfriendly HR director, five hundred twentyfive thousand six hundred minutes to come - a bit less, actually, if I start counting from the previous post, but that’s the idea, one year in Brazil.

Five days and then two more, to say goodbye to a few blocks that had become my whole universe. Hotel, bar, office desk.

Five days to finish and handover a project I’m working on. Weekends do not count.

Five minutes, and a whole life then, to think about what has happened and learn something from it all.

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life?

Or, you can measure a year in blog posts.

Although writing has not been my main activity in the last few months, it has always been on top of my mind.
It’s like exercise, a diet or quitting smoking - one knows it should happen some day, but never gets the courage to get started.

Until one day, for some reasons or for none, it happens - one suddenly changes, and becomes aware that what has to be done just has to be done.
In my case, it’s so many reasons I couldn’t even list them here. All I know is that I have been reporting this post from one day to another, waiting for “this story” to get to a reasonable end before putting it on paper. Well, on screen. But there is no end, and there is no “this story” for all that matters. There is a year. Twelve months, three hundred and sixty-five days, 525 600 minutes, that are going to matter.

There will be places, in this year. It may well be Brazil, and it may well not - I don’t know right now, and I do not even know when I’ll finally know. So what? It may as well be some other country, and it does not matter after all. What matters is that I’m going to measure this year in blog posts - as a unit of my urge to write.

I could start describing my hotel - a few minutes’ walk from my office in Paris.
Yes, I am living at a hotel right now. It’s a long story, one that I have missed the opportunity to write, one that has brought me to spend my nights in an old-fashioned, tiny hotel just opposite my favourite bar.

Quite a narrow universe, these days: work, sleep, food&beer all in a ridiculously small area - less than a cigarette, door to door. Cigarettes are a good unit to measure time, too.

And yes, I do happen to smoke a little more than usual these days. I will take care of that once I have understood which country I’m sleeping in next week, but not right now.

Right now, there is so much I would like to say, so much going on in my head - yet I do not know where to start.
Frustration. Anger. Helplessness. Outrage. Hope. Despair.
I am living all that because of a bunch of morons not doing their job.
I am working for the best, most efficient company ever, yet I am enslaved by a bunch of morons.
Who are going home every night. They are. I’m not. But they are wrong. I’m not. How unfair is that?
Countless people have said they are sorry, that it’s a pity, that what I am getting right now is unfair.
Yet nothing has changed. Why?

Is it worth it?
How long is it reasonable and acceptable for me to wait, before I get over it and look for something else?
How much is a day in my life worth?

Oh, I know how much, from their accounting perspective. A few thousand euros, if I bill it to a client.
Only, that’s one of my working days.
How much is a day in my life worth?

Are you sleeping through the night?
Do you have someone to hold you tight?
Do you have someone to hang out with?
Do you have someone to hug and kiss you?
No. Not really.

I could be brown
I could be blue
I could be violet sky
I could be hurtful
I could be purple
I could be anything you like
Gotta be green
Gotta be mean
Gotta be everything more
Why dont you like me?
Why dont you like me?
Why dont you walk out the door!

There’s too much going on in my head, too much going on around me not to write it down. If not for its general interest, at least as a memory support.

First of all, there was this concert. A youngish artist, a talented Freddy Mercury wannabe, too unexperienced to run a good show, too smart not to. Something in between a new Ben Harper (without depression) and a high school rock band singer, Mika on stage was - at least - deeply refreshing. But then again, was it Mika - with its hairy puppets and air balloons, with its trash bins and feathers, with his unbelievable voice and his outrageuous playbacks - or rather the mere fact of being at a mass concert, with 6999 other (younger) people around that felt refreshing?

And there was Rome, oh god, Rome again, in its breathtaking and luscious beauty… Rome with its clients and friends (which is which, by the way?), with the tonnarelli alla gricia and nebbiolo I’d been missing for so long, Rome with lights and shadows, monuments and dirt, stardom and misery, sunshine and traffic, beauty and hate, Rome with Rotko and Kubrik, with cinema and burrata, Rome offering carciofi alla giudia and sophisticated SPAs. The city was there, calling and seducing in the middle of a huge, unexpected noise. Reminding me of sweet and sour past times, forcing me to think about what’s next.

What’s next, Gaijin? Where’re you going next?
Could be an easy one, this time - I’m going to Sao Paulo, next.
But that’s no answer. Brazil is just a temporary escape, there’s almost no “future” perspective into the idea of spending a year down there.

“All I want is to be a decent man, is it that complicated?” said a good friend in piazza Campitelli, once.
I had no answer then, and I still don’t have one now. Mee too, I’d like to scream out of the window, I want to be a decent man as well !
Hell, it’s probably the only real ambition I have, and I do not even know how to fulfill it.

Who’s next on the line?
Who’s the next friend, role model, romance who’ll betray me?
I’m just waiting. Pretending I’m ready and indifferent, but more simply getting ready to limit collateral damage.
They’d be right. I’m the first one to be untrue. To other people and to myself. So why expect more or better than that?

Wake-up calls are at five thirty, currently.
How the hell can I be still awake past midnight?

After a few months on what I’ll remember as the most useless project ever, I’ve carved my way out of an American-based team and back to work under European standards and conditions.
This may very well be the very first time that I do not feel a single ounce of saudade at the end of a project: because it was particularly uninteresting, probably - or maybe it’s a side-effect of aging.

Back to perfumes&cosmetics, now - a new project for already-known clients, and with an already-known team.
Sort of an encore for my last months in Paris…

I discovered today the following Portuguese words:

O coquetel: cocktail
O time de futebol: football team
O chalé: chalet
O uísque: whisky

Una domenica pomeriggio pigra, una domenica fatta di giornali, sigarette, aglio funghi e Fossati.
La voglia di scrivere, prepotente più del solito.

Di scrivere per raccontare dei personaggi d’una sera - la slovena con le monetine di euro lucide e nuove, come le nostre cinque anni fa; il ceco e lo slovacco che si chiedono perchè abbiano fatto tante storie per separarsi, visto che ora ne fanno altrettante per far sparire una frontiera appena adolescente; la brasiliana che non sa dove andare e comunque ci va; il grasso bavarese in lederhosen e calzettoni che beve litri di birra e vende diritti televisivi per il calcio inglese; il medico cacciatore che impara a fare il mio mestiere.

Ma è soprattutto un bisogno di scrivere per riaffermare un’identità: io sono io perchè con le parole non solo lavoro, ma soprattutto gioco, sogno, rido, vivo. Sono io perchè le parole le ritrovo e le corteggio in tutte le lingue che frequento - troppe, ormai, per non fare confusione. E sono io perchè nonostante le brevi infedeltà e le lunghe storie di passione con le altre lingue, so comunque di voler invecchiare in Italiano.

Da circa un mese l’essenziale dei miei pensieri e della mia concentrazione è dedicato ad imparare il portoghese. Lezioni, conversazioni, giornali, YouTube, Central do Brazil, Chico Buarque e Caetano Veloso, esercizi di grammatica e Harry Potter e o Caliz de Fogo, telefonate, e-mail. Cerco rassicuranti familiarità con l’italiano e col francese, ma anche col dialetto siciliano o col latino.

E forse proprio per questo ho sentito il bisogno di un po’ di Italiano: di qualche giorno a Milano, di qualche giorno a leggere il Corriere, di qualche giorno ad ascoltare i cantautori della mia infanzia. E anche per questo, penso che scrivero’ un po’ piu’ spesso. In Italiano. Probabilmente.

Anche se non scrivo da un’eternità, ci tengo a dire questa cosa:

A me Beppe Grillo sta profondamente sui coglioni.

Ecco, ora mi sento meglio.

It’s just two weeks, but there’s no doubt my summer holidays are going to be pure bliss…

We’ll forget about our sorrows
And think about a brighter day
Cause life is beautiful that way

That e-mail. Shocking news. A friend from college has just killed himself, a few days ago.

And then a phone call. Another friend who’s getting married and moving to the US, and who’s so enthusiast he can barely speak.

The latter maybe finding that happiness we all long for - the former just renouncing to even search for it.
But then again, that’s probably what life - and its nonsense - is all about.

Meanwhile, I’m filling out project management documents. Version number twelve of the same, meaningless slides.
Pretending it’s important. Pretending to understand and listen to people who think it’s important.
Trying hard to persuade myself it’s important.
But it’s not.
Compared to life, to real life - and the abrupt end of it - it’s not.

And I feel empty, stupid, useless.
I feel sick.

Non so se ti è capitato mai
di dover fare una lunga corsa
ed a metà strada stanco
dire a te stesso “adesso basta!”
Eppure altri stan correndo ancora
intorno a te… e allora
Non farti cadere le braccia,
corri forte, va più forte che puoi.
Non devi voltare la faccia,
non arrenderti né ora né mai.
Non puoi fermarti ora

The first, obvious reaction would be to say no. A simple, straight no, for once - after too long a line of “yes” to pretty much anything. I have been flexible, available, accomodating, reliable for two and a half years. Why can’t I be a little bit picky, for once? Why can’t I go to Boston or Sydney, as I had asked?

Then there’s time, and rationality, and good advice from wise friends. It’s still an exciting opportunity, both from a professional and a personal standpoint. It’s a vibrant city, in one of the fastest-growing countries in the world. And it’s a chance that won’t come twice. Had it come as a standalone option, without Boston and Sydney among the possibilities, I would have definitely accepted. So why refuse?

Let’s take it the right way: spending a year in Sao Paulo is going to be great.
And I’m pretty sure a few of you will also come visiting from time to time.
Only slight issue to overcome: I can’t speak Brazilian. But that’s not hard to learn, I guess.

A rosa é branca.
A fruta madura é deliciosa.
A filha do vizinho é velha.
Durante o mês de Janeiro o sol é muito forte.
A que horas sai o trem ?
As cinco e quinze em ponto.