By A Nose...

Another classic comedic scene worth transcribing...

This one comes from the movie "Roxanne", with Steve Martin and Daryl Hannah. Based on the play "Cyrano de Bergerac", it tells the story C.D. Bales (Martin), a man who is charming with the women, who demonstrates an impressive intellect, who is well-liked by nearly everyone, but whose most evident characteristic is his hideously immense nose.
Mocked at a bar in town by a drunken barfly with the IQ of asparagus - Big Nose! the man says - C.D. takes on the challenge of exposing the creative potential of being face to face with such a frightening facial feature. Twenty jokes is the bet, but Martin´s character outdoes himself in this scene!

- C.D. Bales:

Obvious: Excuse me. Is that your nose or did a bus park on your face?
Meteorological: Everybody take cover! She's going to blow!
Fashionable: You know, you could de-emphasize your nose if you wore something larger. Like ... Wyoming.
Personal: Well, here we are. Just the three of us.
Punctual: Alright Dellman... Your nose was on time but you were fifteen minutes late!
Envious: Oooo, I wish I were you! Gosh... To be able to smell your own ear!
Naughty: Pardon me, Sir. Some of the ladies have asked if you wouldn't mind putting that thing away.
Philosophical: You know... It's not the size of a nose that's important. It's what's in it that matters.
Humorous: Laugh and the world laughs with you. Sneeze and it's goodbye Seattle!
Commercial: Hi, I'm Earl Scheib and I can paint that nose for $39.95!
Polite: Ah... Would you mind not bobbing your head? The orchestra keeps changing tempo.
Melodic: Everybody! "He's got the whole world in his nose."
Sympathetic: Oh, What happened? Did your parents lose a bet with God?
Complimentary: You must love the little birdies to give them this to perch on.
Scientific: Say, does that thing there influence the tides?
Obscure: Oh, I'd hate to see the grindstone.
Inquiry: When you stop to smell the flowers, are they afraid?
French: Say, the pigs have refused to find any more truffles until you leave!
Pornographic: Finally, a man who can satisfy two women at once!
Religious: The Lord giveth and He just kept on giving, didn't He?!
Disgusting: Say, who mows your nose hair?
Paranoid: Keep that guy away from my cocaine!
Aromatic: It must be wonderful to wake up in the morning and smell the coffee ... in Brazil.
Appreciative: Oooo, how original. Most people just have their teeth capped.
Dirty: Your name wouldn't be... Dick, would it?

Brilliant. Just brilliant.

Christmas Done Right

Santa Claus must have some sort of advanced, built-in cooling system within his red coat and trousers. How else could the lovable old furball (sorry kids!) support the Rio de Janeiro summer heat?! It should be, as always is, somewhere around "hot as all hell" when he flies overhead and drops into each house with his bundle of gifts. Speaking of which, in a tropical climate such as this, there are very few chimneys - the old man must have on hell of a keychain! But that´s another subject altogether...

The point is this: A White Christmas is magical. And unless it starts raining talc here, Christmas (Xmas for short) in Rio will always be "just-short-of-magical". I mean, it´s all rather unnatural down here. Want examples? Here´s a short list:

1. Snow - And that would be WHAT again?

2. Pine Trees - Sure, we have the fake ones which we decorate yearly, but if I had to see a pine tree right now I would have to pack.

3. Santa´s "apparel" - The clothes and hat scream heat-stroke. The sleigh is something not far from extra-terrestrial for most brazilians.

4. Jingle Bells - Everybody here sings it (in portuguese!), nobody here knows what the hell it means.

And that´s just the tip of the iceberg. Or, considering the sun and beach for which Brazil is known, maybe I should say "the tip of the sand dune".

On the other hand is New York City. I'll tell you right now: If you ever have the chance, take your family and spend two or three weeks in NYC, Xmas included (just leave before New Year´s - 500,000 people watching a ball drop is about the most foolish thing I've ever heard of). I promise you, it will be unforgetable. Why, you ask?

Cold weather and snow, coats and scarves and mittens, choirs and Xmas Carols, ice sculptures, Xmas trees, lights and decoration everywhere, eggnog, toys, street Santas, Rudolph and Frosty, chimneys and cookies and glasses of milk, Xmas stockings, candy canes, a White Xmas, and a partridge in a pear tree! Just to name a few...

You know what it is? CONTAGIOUS. That´s what it is. There is no escaping it. It penetrates deep inside your heart, it reminds you of what are the truly important things in life, it just makes you feel good all over.

I had eleven such "Chrismasses". I miss each and every one of them. I hope someday my kids will have the opportunity to discover what I was lucky enough to experience. Every kid should. And the big kid now writing these words would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Merry Christmas

Biloxi Blues

Just finished watching - far from it being the first time, mind you - Neil Simon´s World War II bootcamp comedy "Biloxi Blues", with Matthew Broderick. Besides Broderick and his character (Private Eugene Morris Jerome), which seem to have been taylor-made for each other, the scene involves a sublime Christopher Walken (Sgt. Merwin J. Toomey) as the psichotic drill sargent, and an animalistic, neanderthal-like, but disciplined and exemplary foot-soldier (Private Joseph Wykowski), played by Matt Mulhern.

As usual, nearly had myself a collapsed lung at this following conversation:

-Sgt. Toomey: Enjoy your meal now, you hear?

-Pvt. Jerome: (mocking) Enjoy your meal now, you hear? That´s good. Hominy pigs and black-pea eyeballs. I've got to make you men strong because tonight we´re going to march the entire platoon off of a 3,000 ft cliff. Dying makes a man out of you. I died in the war. They had me cremated. The ashes were buried right here in my head.

-Pvt. Wykowski: You think it´s funny, Jerome?

-Pvt. Jerome: No, I think you´re funny, Wykowski. You forgot to eat the aluminum tray.

Why is it that certain playwrights, such as Neil Simon, for starters, have such a masterful mind for comedy? If not in "Biloxi Blues, take as another example his "Brighton Beach Memoirs", in which the first half of the play/movie is a comedic assault! You may or may not find what you read above as being funny, but Simon´s comedy is, at the very least, clever! On the other hand, comedy these days seems, in many cases, like it comes out of an assembly line. Very little is new, very little is intelligent, and most of all, very little is funny.
They certainly don´t make playwrights like they used to...

Até Amanhã

Iluminado pela escuridão
Vendo as pálpebras por dentro
Alcançado pela sombra
Caindo rumo ao teto
Enfim...

Hospedado numa quarta dimensão
Enclausurado na imensidão
Impossibilitado do não
Enamorado pelo breu
Enfim...

Esquecido pelo tempo
Abandonado pelo eterno
Acorrentado ao nada
Enganado pela verdade física
Enfim o começo...

Enfim o sonho.

The Dream Between My Legs

Easy now... Don´t go brewing perversions in your head. I am merely referring to a dream of mine - one which did not exactly begin in childhood, but came about within the past five years or so - which, hopefully, will soon be coming true.
Despite the warnings and the scenarios of carnage firmly implanted in my head by those against the realization of this dream, I WILL purchase a motorbike in the very near future.

The bike? A Yamaha Drag Star XVS 650. A dream between my legs! If you want to see it, check it out at the site: www.yamaha-motor.com.br

I just read a (future) fellow Drag Star owner´s blog about his 1700 km trip from São Paulo to Cuiabá and was hypnotized. The motor´s powerful purring under the seat, the soft laid-back ride, the wind on your chest (I won´t say "face" because a helmet will be glued to me at all times) and, according to the blog, all eyes and ears on you... Not to mention the fact that there seems to be a sort of admiration, a kind of respect, on the part of those bound to four wheels and windshields.

And as I write this, I get more and more excited! Feels like I've been infected by some rather persuasive parasite - nobody can take my mind off of this dream! But just before I start playing my own role in "Easy Rider", something fundamental has to be said:

I hope that I may always have the conscience that I am indeed in a quite perilous position, in a huge and unforgiving city, surrounded by larger, more numerous and usually angry vehicles. And I pray that there is always someone, or something, to watch over me as I two-wheel my way into bliss.