oh, nevermind

Today is one of those days where I can’t shake the feeling that I’m forgetting something important. I’ve been trying to figure out all day what it could be… was I supposed to go to a meeting that I somehow forgot to write down in my agenda? Was there a letter I had to write or a bill I was supposed to pay? Did I forget to put the cereal back in the refrigerator this morning? (yes, the cereal goes in the fridge — the ants have recently developed a taste for bran flakes.)

I still have no idea, and it’s driving me crazy.

non-news (Rio week 2)

Like it says in the title, these are the updates from a week that was generally lacking in banner news items. Necessarily shortened because it’s lunchtime, and I’m hungry.

I have to admit that the whole process of looking for an apartment is getting me down a little. Apartment hunting is also not quite as simple as I was hoping it would be (because obviously apartment-hunting in a giant, expensive city like Rio where I don’t know a lot about the different neighborhoods and am not 100% fluent in the language is supposed to be easy). The good news here is that I’ve found my dream apartment — a 3-bedroom penthouse in Flamengo — and cool people to live with (2 other Fulbrighters). The bad news is that the owner of the apartment is out of the country, and her son hasn’t been returning my emails. In other words: keep any available fingers and toes crossed until I find out one way or the other whether it will work out. And then send tissues if it doesn’t.

Don’t get me wrong: I have no complaints about where I’m living now. I love the location, and Teresa and Daniel (her husband) are absolutely fantastic. Having Daniel here is actually really nice because he is in the middle of writing his graduate thesis and so brought about 100 books with him when he came — so mere days after my post about needing stuff to read, he showed up with enough books by Arendt, Kant, Adorno, Popper, Nietzche, Keohane, Waltz, and other philosopher/international relations types that I am going to be busy for quite a long time. So really the only problem that I have is that no matter how much I like staying with them, it still feels temporary, and at this point I’ve been wandering for long enough that I’m really ready to just put my suitcase away. I’ve been living out of a suitcase (almost literally) since I graduated, and while most of the time I love traveling around, I have to admit that now that I’m trying to settle in and get stuff done the troubador lifestyle is feeling a little bit old.

I haven’t talked that much here about what I’m doing in terms of the research itself, and this isn’t the post to do it (there will be one eventually). But just as a brief update, I’m working with the Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade at the Fundação Getúlio Vargas Law School in Botafogo. This, from my point of view, is completely ideal because the FGV-CTS is responsible for a lot of the top-level research, advising, policy analysis, and projects relating to free culture and access to information, etc. in Brazil. Which, since Brazil plays a very important role in the world debate on things like intellectual property, is saying quite a lot. Everyone has been fantastic and I expect to stay based here until December, but I’ll hopefully also be working on some projects with other organizations while I’m in Rio. Part of the reason this is so vague, by the way, is that I haven’t completely worked out the details of what I will be doing on a day-to-day basis — there are several projects that I’m interested in (either working on or studying, or both) and I’m waiting to see what comes through before I start blabbing about it…

P.S. I’m famous! Or not. But they did put me on the CTS weblog http://www.direitorio.fgv.br/cts/index.html

Taste infringement: too soon?

Following the article in the New York Times online today, I looked up the Coke Zero “taste infringement” videos online. Since YouTube is blocked on my FGV account, I ended up watching the video clips on Coke Zero’s adsite here. Quite honestly, I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. Between the copyright industries’ blatant abuse of cease and desist letters and the neverending war on, uh, pirates (I had to work so hard to avoid putting that in quotation marks. Arrrr.), it seems almost “too soon” for this. The concept of “taste infringement” is ridiculous, but then, so are a lot of claims that the copyright lobby is making. And what about the lawyer (supposedly a real lawyer not in on the joke) in clip number 4 on the site, who advises a threatening letter to put a stop to this? Nothing but scary.

See for yourself:

[ifilm=2758314]

And yes, I know I’m now the stooge of Coke’s viral marketing, but… but…

Rio week 1

It’s been a busy first week in Rio, full of apartment-hunting, new faces, language embarassments as I rediscover the carioca accent and vocab, (nice to know that all those words I picked up in Mozambique will get me absolutely nowhere here), accidental bus detours, missed phone calls (because my cellphone is made to look pretty rather than be at all useful) and lots of hours at FGV. Here, while we’re at it, is a brief list of things that I learned last week:

1. That thing I do where I pretend to understand what people are saying while hoping that I’ll either get it eventually or be able to google it later? Not really a good idea, and that goes double when it comes to directions and street names. I know…. this should go without saying, especially since I’ve said it before (probably here) and made all sorts of resolutions never to do it again. I keep reminding myself that the embarassed I’ll feel at having to ask for the street name, ask them to say it more slowly, ask them to spell it, ask them to spell it again, ask them to name two cross streets and one major landmark it’s near, ask them to spell the names of all of the above, etc. etc. is nothing compared to the embarassment of having to ask for all this information in successive phone calls over the span of an hour while I wander around the bairro, completely and totally lost. But even knowing this, I can’t stop — I swear it’s compulsive.

2. Knowing that I have the compulsion above, I should plan on always getting lost on the way to any new place and should apply sunscreen accordingly.

3. Just because I took the 584 home from Ipanema does not mean that I can take it home from Botafogo. Or rather, I can take it home, as long I don’t mind going from Botafogo to Humaita (which are literally right next to each other) by way of Rio Sul Shopping, Leme, Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon, Jardim Botanico… thus turning a should-be 10 minute trip into over an hour of bus time.

4. Brazilian bikinis are even smaller than I remembered.

5. Not all clubs in Rio are created equal. This became abundantly clear on Saturday night, when I decided to check out a supposedly-electronica club in Copacabana with some friends, because it’s been a long time since I’ve heard good electronica music and I was feeling nostalgic for Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, instead of techno out to be some sort of awful british punk/slightly remixed rock that at times veered toward house beats but never quite made it. Not only that but half the people there were only about 15 years old — doubly ironic since it is the only place in Rio I have ever been carded, and I almost didn’t get in because I didn’t have my ID.

6. The only thing worse than death-metal-boy’s music is death metal boy practicing the electric guitar by playing the same 6 bars of the song at full volume (and with metronome), over, and over, and over, and over… when I am trying to sleep.

reading list

Since I have until December to do pretty much whatever I want (well, not really, but it’s a fun exaggeration) I’ve decided that one of the things I want to do is try to fill in some of the most blatant and embarassing gaps in my books read list. That means that you all should send suggestions and I will do my best to find them… with the caveat that here I’m a lot more likely to be able to locate things along the “classic” lines in areas like philosophy, economics, political science etc. than to find anything very new and excessively American. So… the floor’s yours and I promise I’ll make a solid effort to keep up. (Sending suggestions by email might be better because I tend to forget to check comments on here — but don’t let that stop you. For anyone who doesn’t have my address handy it’s gea472 [at] gmail dot com.)