Bahia Nightlife I

I spent yesterday evening at a fantastic restaurant/bookstore/performance space called Tom do Sabor, along with the rest of the delegates working at this conference. Bought a famous book entitled "Dona Flora e Sois Dois Maridos" by famed Brazilian author Jorge Amado, rubbed elbows with some amazing people, and ate a fantastic meal of shellfish, plantain-wrapped delicacies, and a heavenly shrimp risotto. I was privileged to sit next to the very lovely and charming wives of two of my mentors from Dubai and Beirut, members of the old-school Lebanese elite that have spread out across the world in the last three decades in a diaspora unlike any other... (Brasil, in fact, has the largest numbe of Lebanese immigrants of any nation in the world) My two friends, armed with formidable French educations and inimitable personalities, are veteran marketing hands who've long maintained an omniscent, market-centric perspective of the tumultuous happenings in the Middle East and beyond. Suzy, one of my new dinner companions, who’s lived in Beirut for decades, offered up the quote of the day. While talking about last year’s devastating war between Israel, Beirut, and Hezbollah, she dropped this conversational nugget across the table as we were munching on appetizers: “We've gotten used to war. It's not unexpected. And it breaks up the monotony.” I thought that was quite amusing, in a black humor sort of way, in that a city as perpetually besieged as Beirut is filled with such stoic citizens who can laugh off the tragedy enveloping their country. It seems the residents of Beirut have accepted their fate to be on the front lines of a war that is largely irrelevant to many of their personal beliefs. You can learn a lot from people who’ve lived through bombings, civil wars, occupations, and terrorist attacks…i sometimes think that the people who live their lives under constant siege achieve the greatest feat I know of, that which the Satyagraha disciples believe is so transformational: to manifest non-violence in the midst of aggression and a climate of fear...

During dinner the band started to play, about ten feet away from our table. The group was a glorious 4-piece ensemble, featuring a woman vocalist, a dreaded percussionist on kit, a phenomenal bass player on upright & electric, & a clean shaven younger guy playing some very tasteful keyboard lines. They spent about an hour and a half working their way through a fantastic set of original material, with the occasional Marley cover and standard thrown in for good measure. They were ridiculously tight. Brasil seems to be chock full of colossal musicians, with chops to kill for, and most of the cats i've come across in my short stay seem to be playing with a transcendent rhythmic sense that's rare in most parts of the world... I mean, people everywhere are just not this oriented to rhythm... The band last night was a good example, in that they played an interesting amalgam of reggae, jazz, and afrobeat, with your standard global pop motifs thrown into the mix to smooth it out and make it palatable. But everything came back to the rhythm section, which was nonchalanetly in perfect sync. Needless to say, I was transported. Drunk too, as it turns out a half-dozen Caipirinha’s will eventually catch up to you and kick your ass something fierce...

After dinner a couple of us still felt inclined for one more drink, so we headed down to a club on the ocean front, but the band shut down the minute we got there, so it was a bit anticlimactic. All the Samba dancing we were looking for will have to wait for another night... Had a great time, though. Got to talk to Matthew Shirts a bit more, who’s a walking reservoir of funny Brazil stories and insight into the publishing world. Stumbled back into my room at 2 am and barely made it to work on time this morning. A couple cups of good coffee later, and another day starts to unfold in this strange city in the state of Bahia, a crucible of culture that even the Brazilians consider magical…


Quote for the Day:
“The Brazilian takes his play, as he takes his life, in his stride, and his quick speech and gestures do not reach back to his mind. He has studied samples of every nationality established under the skies these many, many years… If the [Brazilian] likes you as an individual, he will do more than anything for you. If he doesn’t, he will do less than nothing. If he knows little about you, but perceives that you have manner and a few trifles of that sort, he will wait and see. And he has heaps of leisure.”
Rudyard Kiplin, Brazilian Sketches