Samba schools around Brazil are starting their practice sessions for next February’s Carnival shenanigans. Still, during the off-season, many schools offer glimpses of skin and sequins for tourists and Sunday strollers. Here’s (very rough) video of a tiny group from Rio’s Salgueiro Samba School, warming up the crowd with hips and syncopation on a dreary […]
From the AV Room: Samba No Pé Read More
Flaneur – (n.) from French. One who wanders aimlessly, who roams, who travels at a lounging pace. Aimlessly? “What I required was not exactly solitude, but the opportunity to roam around freely, meeting people when I wished and taking leave of them when I wished.” -Gérard de Nerval “…it is exile that evokes the sensitive
As an educator, fighting ignorance is my job. As black man who is also an expatriate educator, fighting ignorance can be an all-consuming yoke around my neck. Even some of the most highly-educated people, with many years of traveling to the US reflected in their passports, have no clue about the black experience in the
Fighting Ignorance with Film Read More
In São Paulo’s boho-chic neighborhood of Vila Madalena, graffiti artists have claimed a couple of streets as an impactful open-air gallery of revolving exhibitions. Depicting city life, Brazilian slang, “Blackee Power” (the Brazilian term for a stay-sof-Fro!), and national pride, these murals stand testament to the city’s resurgence, unlike their unfortunate counterparts in New York.
Photo Essay: Madalena Murals Read More
Currently, I’m running around São Paulo collecting data and testing out adjectives for use in the reviews I’m writing for the Total São Paulo guide. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you armchair travelers with a little retro footage from SP’s nemesis, Rio de Janeiro, to spark the wanderlust and maybe incite a couple of ticket purchases to Brazil.
From the AV Room: Brazilian Air Read More
A powerful triumvirate of lyricists, CHOC QUIB TOWN hails from Quibdó, the impoverished capital of the mostly-black, oft-maligned, and federally-neglected department of Chocó, on Colombia’s Pacific Coast. In what is virtually the Mississippi of Colombia, the African heritage of the residents, relatively un-integrated with the rest of the country, foments a profound but largely overlooked
Global Juke Joint: Colombian Gold Read More
If you’ve slept on getting that little blue book, the price tag’s gone up quite a bit as of today. But you still can’t put a price tag on the personal development and enjoyment that comes from international travel, and you can’t get fly without a government-issued passport. By age thirty, everyone should have one.
Getting Your Walking Papers: Price-Increase Edition Read More
Ages ago, when a young, collegiate Fly Brother was interning on Capitol Hill in DC (we’re talking at the turn of the century), I was asked by one of the other interns if I was Cape Verdean. Cape Who? She was from Boston and told me I looked Cape Verdean, and I was like, “Whatever
Shouts to My Cape Verdean Play Brother Read More
Often, the best way to improve skills in a language different from your own is to utilize them under adverse circumstances. As proven by The Nanny, New York’s true mother tongue is Yiddish, and my 24-hour ordeal to fly from The City to Jacksonville on a buddy pass provided ample opportunity to strengthen my flimsy,
How Flying Standby out of LaGuardia Helped Me Practice My Yiddish Read More
This weekend, I’m in The City for a travel blogging conference, TBEX ’10. And while I stood sweating in the sweltering Times Square subway station today with every color and creed on the globe represented on that platform, I remembered a post from last year, in which I compared the two capitals of the English-speaking
Re-titled Re-post: I Definitely ♥ NY Read More
