The City as Fantasy and Reality Principle

[NOTE:  This is still a draft, and the content will probably change in the next couple days].

This is the first of two reviews of recent queer/ish films I watched that take place in São Paulo. 
 

The first movie is called Quanto Dura O Amor, literally translated as ‘How Long Does Love Last?’ but released internationally in English as Paulista.  The movie’s English-language title hits upon a zeitgeist that is so trenchant in the film that it is probably too obvious for the Brazilian viewer.  That is, how Avenida Paulista is the symbol of modernity in São Paulo and Brazil.  There is a lot I could say about Av. Paulista and its geographic and symbolic importance in cultural politics, perhaps even a chapter’s worth.  What I want to talk about here is how the geography of the city mobilizes intertwined fantasies of professional fulfillment, romantic yearning, and quasi-existential happiness, while simultaneously putting those fantasies just out of reach.  Paulista teaches the viewer how to love suffering for one’s aspirations.

Here is the trailer with English subtitles.

The movie follows the romantic lives of three characters living in a no-frills apartment complex at the very end of the Paulista.  Humble abodes with a view to die for.  The film begins with Marina leaving her boyfriend and her country accent behind, as she drives to São Paulo to try and land a part as a stage actress.  Through some interpersonal connections, she has managed to find an open room in legal-assistant Suzana’s apartment.  As Marina discovers the building’s community terrace, she exclaims to another resident, Jay, how she can’t believe her new address.  “Could you imagine if someone asked me where I live?  Man, I’d tell them, ‘on the Paulista.’” 

Warning: Minor Spoilers Beneath the Fold.

Different Stokes for Different Folks

Tonight over dinner, I told my roommate that we have a phrase in the U.S., and then I gave a rough translation of:

"You dance with the devil, the devil doesn't change."

She smiled and turned her eyes up to the ceiling.  "Ahh," she replied, "in Brazil we say...

"se está no inferno, abraça o capeta."

or, "When in hell, embrace the demon."

Touché

Atendimento, or "Have You Been Served?" São Paulo Style

Today's post is inspired by the many offices I visited today.

If you are asked one question while you are in São Paulo, it is likely to be the following:

"O/a senhor/a já foi atendindo?"  ["Has the gentleman/lady been served/attended to?"]

One friend who grew up in Brasilia, the capital, joked that atendimento is a very São Paulo social artifice.  Being attended to, in the most traditional scenario, involves arriving at an office and being immediately greeted by a receptionist.  This receptionist or assistant will offer you coffee, which they will not bring. Rather, another cleaning/kitchen assistant is chamado [called] to bring you an espresso or water.  And often the receptionist will take coffee with you, while you both wait for the receptionist's boss to become available.  Being attended to gives the office visitor a sense of social status and esteem.  Of course, not as much status or esteem as the boss who is too busy to see you at the mutually-agreed upon time.  Atendimento is, thus, a social mediation of sorts between senhores [gentlemen]. 

As the consumer and service economies have expanded rapidly, so has the practice of atendimento and the pretensions to treat every client as a gentleman or lady.  Last week, as I was shopping for a mattress, one salesman encouraged me to sit down so we could discuss the price, and motioned for another saleswoman to bring me coffee.  What was particularly interesting about this encounter (beyond the gender dynamic that played out), was that this store had some of the lower-end mattresses and prices that I had visited that day.  In effect, its atendimento practice was more self-consciously aspirational and over-compensatory than 'second nature.'  Also, good atendimento over the phone is seen as a requisite business practice.  No customer or client complaint is as damning as: 'eu fui mal atendido.' [I was poorly served.]

More under the fold

Over, Under, and Through

The other day, I walked from São Paulo's Museum of Modern Art (MASP) to the 9 de julho viaduct, via the 9 de julho Avenue.  It's about a 1.6 km walk, which is a small portion compared to the entire stretch of 9 de julho that extends from Anhagabau Valley to the Pinheiros river (about 10 km total).  9 de Julho Avenue has expanded immensely over the twentieth century.  It was originally widened to a boulevard with expansive sidewalks.  Then (I imagine in the 1970s), the city diminished the width of the sidewalks to make 9 de julho an arterial avenue.  In the 1930s, the Daher Elias Cutait tunnel was inaugurated which sent the 9 de julho underground for half a kilometer.  In the 1990s, express bus lanes were put in the middle of the arterial.  With so many lanes and so much traffic, walking is definitely secondary.  Yet residential apartments line both sides of this section of 9 de julho.  Most of them were probably built before the sidewalk was reduced, and many of them have built garages where possible.  But pedestrians spring up along this route like daisies through cement.  Cars, busses, over and underpasses, and gated buildings cannot keep them from going about their daily lives.

Pictures:

The view from behind the Modern Art Museum of São Paulo of residential buildings that line either side of the avenue.  I am currently standing several stories above the underground tunnel and the avenue.

I begin my descent onto the avenue.  It is hard to note here, but at the bottom of the photograph is a colonnaded observation deck built with the tunnel that has now been closed to the public. 

This is a photograph of the entry to the tunnel, when it was first constructed.  Notice the observation level above the arches and the wide sidewalk at the base of the tunnel entry.

Now, the sidewalk has been reduced, and there is another viaduct that passes over the entrance to the tunnel. 

Look What I Wrote On My Shirt

Welcome to my new blog, dedicated to my observations of everyday life in São Paulo.  My name is Jay Sosa, and I am a PhD student in sociocultural anthropology.  I am currently conducting research in São Paulo, Brazil on (1) how LGBT activists and businesses utilize urban space and mass media circulation to generate publicity and (2) how such publicity affects the lives of LGBT people in the city.  In order to conduct this research, I am using a technique called “ethnography,” where I will live in my “fieldsite” (i.e. São Paulo), participate in and observe organizations that charge themselves with generating such publicity.  I will also interview and interact with large swaths of people in São Paulo to see what effects (if any) these organizations have. 

Ethnography has been called by anthropologist Clifford Geertz as “deep hanging out,” and earlier by anthropologist Brosinow Malinowski as an attempt to record the “imponderabilia of everyday life.”  By ‘imponderabilia,’ Malinowski means the innumerable cultural facts, understandings and interpretations that shade any event with a particular meaning.  He calls these underlying understandings ‘imponderabilia’ precisely because they are too immense and too subtle to catalogue and delineate.   For Malinowski, the best way to analyze a social phenomenon is to grasp it in all its detail and adjoining context and witness it as it occurs and where it occurs.  That is, ethnography is something you do in situ, and the ethnographer’s knowledge about impoderabilia is acquired over (or unfolds through) time. 

The real shame of trying to capture everyday life and its imponderabilia is that one ends up observing and thinking about much more than one’s research subject proper.  Or, put another way, one ends up amassing too much contextual information than could ever be fully expounded upon in a research paper or book.  That is where this blog comes in (for me).  I plan to write about things that may seem totally unrelated to the research objectives I outlined above.  Nevertheless, in keeping with the theme of imponderabilia, such details may provide crucial details in trying to explain why my observations of LGBT publicity are ethnographically important. 

And, this is where I will rely on you, dear reader, for your attention and your responsiveness.  During the month or so that I have been here, many everyday minutia have piqued my interest.  And I will be sharing these things in the coming days, weeks, and months.  But I also want to know what piques your interest too.  What should I seek out?  What is worth exploring more?  What do you want to know?

Many of my initial thoughts have to do with the city’s architecture, since a large part of my three weeks here were spent walking around parts of the city.  The next few posts will most likely include:

Sidewalks (I mean, it’s the title of the blog right)

Municipal parks

Shopping Arcades (yes, São Paulo still has a few, and yes, I have pretensions of being Walter Benjamin)

VIP (pronounced ‘veepey’) culture

Bicycles

Subway Expansion

Sound Pollution

Laundry and the Middle Class