Jules: Hello, George.
George: Hey Gorgeous. Having a good time?
Jules: Not particularly, but I did what I came to do.
George: What, you split them up?
Jules: No, I said ‘goodbye.’
George: Good girl. I’m proud of you. I’d be prouder still if you were dancing.
Jules: Oh, I have big plans for dancing. Just give me thirty, thirty- five years.
George: Oh, the misery, the exquisite tragedy…the Susan Hayward of it all. [laughs] I can just picture you sitting there alone at your table in your lavender gown…
Jules: Did I tell you my gown was lavender?
George: Hair swept up, haven’t touched your cake. Probably drumming your fingernails on the white linen table cloth, the way you do when you’re really feeling down. I see you looking at those nails thinking, ‘God, I should have stopped in all my evil plotting to have that manicure!’ But it’s too late now.
Jules: George, I didn’t tell you my gown was lavender.
George: Suddenly, a familiar song. Then, you’re off your chair in one exquisite movement. Wondering, searching, sniffing the wind like a daffelled deer. Has God heard your little prayer? Will Cinderella dance again? And then, suddenly, the crowds part. And there he is. Sleek. Stylish. Radiant with charisma. It’s only, he’s on the telephone. But then, so are you. And he comes towards you, the moves of a jungle cat. And although you quite correctly sense that he is gay, like most devastatingly handsome single men of his age are, you think, ‘What the hell? Life goes on.’ Maybe there won’t be marriage. Maybe there won’t be sex. But by God, there will be dancing!
I like everything folkish. I can’t help it. And besides being mostly Italian, I do have a Portuguese grandma. So today I was listening to my grandma, my aunt and my mother singing fado and I got smitten. Then they started talking about some traditional jewellery they have, and I started looking for traditional costumes. Below is a very nice image I found at The Costumer’s Manifesto.
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Update:
I forgot to say that the name of this post, which translates to ‘Portuguese house’, is a reference to a very known fado, sang by Amália Rodrigues, and which is also one of my family’s favorites. I like it, but my favorite one is Canção do Mar (Song of the sea), by Dulce Pontes.
Back in the 70’s, there was a musical movement in Brasil called ‘Iê-iê-iê’. This is the Portuguese version of ‘yeah, yeah, yeah’ and it – obviously – designated rock’n'roll. One of the most famous singers of this era was Vanusa, now a sixty-old lady that became famous with the song Manhãs de Setembro.
She was pretty much respected, if not for her music, at least for the impact she and her contemporaries had on the popular reaction to the military dictatorship. Until last week.
Vanusa was invited to sing the National Anthem at a public agents’ event. When she started singing, she was pretty much tuneless. Ok. Then, she made a small mistake on the lyrics. That was also ok – especially because I think only about 2% Brazilians can sing the Anthem correcly. 
But then she got completely tuneless and she pratically rewrote the lyrics. It was awkward. When Vanusa ended the first part, many people started to applaud in the hopes that she would stop there, but she just went on as if nothing happened until someone interrupted her.
It’s pretty obvious everyone in that place was embarrassed. No one knew how to react. There’s a feeling here we call ‘vergonha alheia’. It’s that shame feeling you have for someone else’s mistake. I guess that describes pretty much what everyone felt then.
All this happened in March, but the video was released on the internet only a few days ago. It spread like a virus and soon everybody was commenting about it – and still are. There were a lot of people insinuating that she was drunk. Vanusa denied the accusations and said that the cause of her grothesque errors was the medicine she was taking fo her labyrinthitis. Nobody cares, though. It’s all about the mockering.
I must confess that I laughed very much when I watched the video. There’s no way to avoid it. It was arkward.
You can watch the video below. I’ll also post the lyrics the way she sang them, marking the places where she made mistakes (considering only the lyrics, because the melody is ALL wrong). The original Anthem and lyrics can be found here.
Ouviram do Ipiranga as margens plácidas
De um novo heróico e brado retumbante,
E o sol da liberdade, em raios fúlgidos,
Brilhou no céu da pátria nesse instante.
Se o penhor dessa igualdade
Conseguimos conquistar com braços fortes,
Em teu seio, ó liberdade,
Desafia o nosso peito a própria morte!
Ó Pátria amada,
Idolatrada,
Salve! Salve!
Brasil, um sonho intenso, um raio vívido
De amor e de esperança à terra desce,
Se em teu formoso céu, risonho e límpido,
A imagem do Cruzeiro resplandece.
Gigante pela própria natureza,
És belo, és forte, és risonho e límpido.
A imagem do Cruzeiro…
Terra adorada,
Entre outras mil,
És tu, Brasil,
Ó Pátria amada!
Dos filhos deste solo és mãe gentil,
Pátria amada,
Brasil!
[End of the first part.]
Deitado eternamente em berço esplêndido,
Ao som do mar e à luz do céu profundo,
Fulguras, ó Brasil, florão da América,
Iluminado ao sol do Novo Mundo!
Do que a terra, mais garrida,
Teus risonhos, lindos campos têm mais flores;
“Nossos bosques têm mais vida”,
“Nossa vida, mais amores.”
Ó Pátria amada,
Idolatrada,
Salve! Salve!
[This is where she was interrupted. The Anthem has three more stanzas. You would say that there aren't that many mistakes, but if compare the video to the original song, you'll understand.]
“Actress Hitomi Kuroki took her first air trip in her final year in high school. She traveled alone from her native Fukuoka to Osaka. The purpose of the trip was take entrance exams at Takarazuka Music School (TMS), a premier training ground for aspiring Takarazuka revue starlets. She had the blessing of her parents, who had decided their daughter could at least give it a try before she left high school.
According to her book “Watashi ga Naku Toki” (When I weep) from Gentosha Inc., Kuroki herself knew at the time that she would get over her infatuation with TMS once she saw how out of place she would be there. And she recalls that when her flight was taking off, Beethoven’s “Fifth Symphony” (The Destiny) was playing on the in-flight music channel she was tuned to.
Kuroki passed the exams, which put her among an extremely talented minority. There are preparatory schools for TMS, where intensive singing and dancing courses are offered. Girls aged 15-18 are eligible for enrollment at TMS, but since competition to get in is so severe–only 1 in 20 succeeds–many girls fail the entrance exams and eventually quit.
But TMS is overhauling its entrance tests next spring. It will do away with the compulsory singing and ballet tests, and the preliminary test will be in interview form to evaluate the candidates’ looks and “star quality.” In the follow-up test, the candidates will be judged on their singing and ballet, but the focus will be on whether they have basic abilities.
According to TMS, the overhaul is aimed to throw the doors open wider. Girls who have been thoroughly trained in the “entrance exam technique” are certainly skilled, but they all tend to look the same, down to their hairstyles. Rather than attracting only these cookie-cutter candidates, the school would like amateurs to try out so that truly unique talents might be discovered.
I recently visited a prep school in Tokyo, where black leotard-clad girls were undergoing intensive training despite the summer holiday season. The school’s director, a former Takarazuka revue member, noted: “People talk about discovering diamonds in the rough, but you can’t really spot a future superstar from among total novices. If TMS wants to attract more candidates, a quicker way would be to get more high school girls to see Takarazuka shows on their school trips.”
TMS’s motto is “Kiyoku Tadashiku Utsukushiku,” which translates as “with purity, righteousness and beauty.” But the school is better known for the rigid discipline it expects of its students during their two years there.
Numerous paths are available today for young people aspiring to show business careers, but about 1,000 teen girls still keep knocking on TMS’s heavily guarded doors.
Seen from the outside, Takarazuka’s legendary status appears to be quite intact, but I suppose people inside think differently.
The bigger the fantasy, the more work it seems to require to maintain it.“
The Asahi Shinbun – 28/07/2008
“Judge me for my own merits, or lack of them, but do not look upon me as a mere appendage to this great general or that great scholar, this star that shines at the court of France or that famed author. I am in my own right a whole person, responsible to myself alone for all that I am, all that I say, all that I do. It may be that there are metaphysicians and philosophers whose learning is greater than mine, although I have not met them. Yet, they are but frail humans, too, and have their faults; so, when I add the sum total of my graces, I confess I am inferior to no one.”
