Documentary on Raul Seixas.
Raul Seixas (1945-1989), Brazilian rock composer, singer, songwriter and producer, born in Salvador, Brazil, and died of pancreatitis in São Paulo.
Prior to being a writer, Paulo Coelho was in a song-writing partnership with Raul Seixas.
Thanks to Paulo Coelho for posting on his blog.
Synchronicity: Only a couple of days ago, I was discussing Raul Seixas with a Brazilian girl and the song-writing partnership he had with Paulo Coelho.
Diário de Classe a verdade …
Isadora Faber y Martha Payne
Martha Payne aka Veg with her NeverSeconds food blog has inspired a Brazilian schoolgirl to launch a similar blog, which in turn has led to improvement at the school.
Brazilian teenager Isadora Faber was inspired to start a blog after hearing about Martha Payne aka Veg.
Martha talked about school dinners, Isadora Faber took it further and talked about more than school dinner, highlighting problems with her school.
She created her own Facebook page Diário de Classe: A Verdade (School Diary: The Truth).
The photos published on her page showed broken water fountains and fans, a basketball court with no ceiling and she even called for a teacher who had issues with some students to be replaced.
What she was writing got picked up by newspapers and TV channels and has led directly to a school refurbishment programme and the teacher with who the students were having problems being replaced.
There were attempts by bullyboys at the local council to silence Martha, but she showed courage in the face of the bullies and stood firm.
Isadora faced bullying by the school to try and silence her, but like Martha she stood firm.
Both girls have exchanged videos with each other.
As well as writing of her school dinners, Martha has raised funds for a school kitchen in Malawi called Friends of NeverSeconds. Later this month Martha and her family will be travelling to Malawi for the inauguartion of Friends of NeverSeconds.
Martha has been nominated for a Great Scot Award and for a BBC Food and Farming Award.
Today, on my way from Guildford farmers market and on my way to a lovely coffee shop Café Mila, on visiting Cook (a lovely food shop in Godalming), I nominated Martha for a Cook Great Briton Award. As I told in the shop, I could not think of a more deserving recipient who has done more to raise awareness and understanding of good food.
Whilst at Café Mila a little girl came and chatted to me and told me she was enjoying her ice cream. I asked did she like the coffee shop? A very definite yes. Would she not rather be at Costa? A very definite no!
The Rolling Stones played in front of 1.5million people, the biggest concert of all time, at Copacabana Beach, Rio De Janeiro, on the 18th February 2006.
To celebrate the beginning of their 50th anniversary year, on 12th July 2012 The Stones released this historic concert in its entirety.
More groups need to follow their good example and release high quality footage of their concerts for fans to watch.
The Rio concert was the opening night of a World Tour.
The concert opened with AfroReggae.
Many years ago I saw The Stones play in London.
Manuscrito encontrado em Accra (Manuscript found in Accra), latest Paulo Coelho book scheduled for publication in Brazil, August 2012.
Paulo and Maria 2002
“At every moment of our lives we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss.”
“When we meet someone and fall in love, we have a sense that the whole universe is on our side… And yet if something goes wrong, there is nothing left! How is it possible for the beauty that was there only minutes before to vanish so quickly? Life moves very fast. It rushes from heaven to hell in a matter of seconds.”
“If I must be faithful to someone or something, then I have, first of all, to be faithful to myself.”
“If I’m looking for true love, I first have to get the mediocre love out of my systems.”
“Anyone who has lost something they thought was theirs forever finally come to realize that nothing really belongs to them.”
“The art of sex is the art of controlled abandon.”
“Passion makes a person stop eating, sleeping, working, feeling at peace. A lot of people are frightened because, when it appears, it demolishes all the old things it finds in its path.”
“In love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel.”
“The great aim of every human being is to understand the meaning of total love. Love is not to be found in someone else, but in ourselves; we simply awaken it. But in order to do that, we need the other person. The universe only makes sense when we have someone to share our feelings with.”
Pain and suffering are used to justify the one thing that brings only joy: love.
“Considering the way the world is, one happy day is almost a miracle.”
From the diary of Maria, the prostitute in Eleven Minutes. Also posted by Paulo Coelho on his blog.
Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho is the story of Maria, a Brazilian girl who is enticed to work in Switzerland and ends up working as a well-paid prostitute.
Danish composer Stig Nordestgaard turned Eleven Minutes into a musical.
For my lovely friend Polina who read Eleven Minutes in English, then Russian. And for my lovely friend Alisa at whose suggestion I read Eleven Minutes.
black tunnel
“I saw only a tunnel, with a man pointing a gun at me and telling me to get out of the car.”
I saw a tunnel too, except this one led to a hotel in Rio de Janeiro, the Glória Hotel. I looked at that hotel, expected the worst and thought to myself: “it’s not fair, I’m only 26 years old!” Fair or not, in the early morning of 27 May 1974 I stood before death and could not see what was happening beside me. Just the tunnel and the hotel. But my story does not matter, it serves only to say that I understand perfectly well what Sorin is telling me in a bar lost in the middle of the Carpatian Mountains.
Sorin Miscoci’s calvary began on 28 March 2005, near Baghdad. He had been designated to spend a week there at the request of a Rumanian TV station and ended up being kidnapped for 55 days.
“Later on, when they freed me, the American security agents asked me how many people were there. And I told them: one. They laughed and said that just wasn’t possible. It was the psychologist who helped me, explaining that in situations like this, nothing in the surroundings has any importance. All you see is the focus of the crisis, what is threatening you, and you simply forget the rest.
Sorin has just got married to Andrea, who strokes his hand. We have been traveling together for three days and we will continue for another week. Cristina Topescu, an old friend who worked as a journalist in the same TV as Sorin, says that when the time came to mobilize the country, few colleagues came forward to speak to the President of the Republic, for fear of losing their jobs.
“I asked God for only one thing: to die with a bullet in the heart. I had already seen videos of prisoners being decapitated; I asked, begged to be shot,” adds Sorin.
Andrea gives him a kiss. He smiles, asks if I want to stay in that restaurant or if we should go to the only karaoke in Sibiu. I prefer to interrupt the conversation at that point – it was better to go and sing together.
On the way to the discotheque, I think about the black tunnel: without wanting to romanticize a dramatic situation, I felt that this happens to everyone. When we are faced with something that really threatens us, it is impossible to look around, although this is the correct and safer procedure. We can’t see clearly, use logic, gather information that can help us and those who try to get us out of that situation.
We reach the karaoke, drink some more, sing Elvis, Madonna and Ray Charles. Ours is an interesting group: Lacrima, who was abandoned by her mother when she was only two months old. Leonardo, who has just got over a depression that lasted two years.
Cristina Topescu, who recently overcame difficult moments. Sorin and his 55 days in captivity, and Andrea, who almost lost the person she loved. And me, with scars all over my body and soul.
And even so we drank, sang and celebrated life. To have friends like these gives me more than hope, it makes me understand that the true survivors will never be victims to their torturers, because they manage to keep alive the most important thing in human beings: joy.
Posted by Paulo Coelho on his blog.
Synchronicity: The Girl on the Landing, a chilling portrayal of schizophrenia. The autostrada, which had been travelling through Mediterranean landscapes of cypress trees and vineyards, plunged back into the blackness of the tunnels.
Also see
Anderson Sá turned his back on drug dealing and crime and formed AfroReggae – a group devoted to providing an alternative to the children in Brazil’s favelas.
I first came across AfroReggae at the BeyondTV International Film Festival held in Swansea, December 2006. No, not literally, we were not that lucky to have them perform, although the night before, at a party at the Monkey Café, a café cum nightclub, Swansea’s alternative music scene, we did have Llwybr Llaethog, Wales top hip-hop band perform. No, AfroReggae were featured in a film, Favela Rising.
“I was ashamed as a Brazilian when I saw such a symbolic shirt being handed to a war criminal. Blair’s appointment will lower Brazil’s reputation in the eyes of the world. He has no standing in his own country, he failed as a negotiator in the Middle East, he lost his job because of the Iraq War and he has the blood of English soldiers on his hands.” — Paulo Coelho
“My feelings are that I think you are rubbish at your job. You don’t care about the British public, armed forces or anyone. My big brother died at the age of 18, and what for? A war over oil and money. I think that you should withdraw all of our soldiers from Iraq. After all, it’s not our war, it’s America’s. We are all hurting badly, but I don’t just blame Gordon’s death on the Iraqis that made the roadside bomb. I blame YOU as well, because it is your fault that our soldiers are over there in the first place.” — Maxine Gentle, whose brother was killed in Iraq
To Governor Sergio Cabral:
You appointed former British Prime Minister Tony Blair as consultant to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games. The question on the lips of most people is why?
Whilst in office Tony Blair showed not the slightest interest in sport. Therefore what has he to offer, what is he being paid for, how much is he being paid? Jobs for the boys, you grease my palm and I grease yours?
It cannot be claimed he won the 2012 Games for London as that was down to the hard work of then London Mayor Ken Livingstone and former Olympic athlete Sebastian Coe.
Tony Blair is seen by most people as a war criminal. A man with blood on his hands. The blood of innocent Iraqis, the blood of young British soldiers who have died in an illegal, pointless war. He took his country to war on a pack of lies, against the wishes of his own people. A war that has destabilized the Middle East and made the world a less safe place.
Has the irony escaped you that the day you met with and appointed Blair was the day after he appeared before the Iraq Inquiry and tried to justify his action?
Take a hard look at the pictures of the people on the street as they greeted Blair as he appeared before the Iraq Inquiry.
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/02/445546.html
This is the man you have engaged as a consultant.
It was an insult to the team and to Brazilian football fans the world over to hand Blair a Brazil team shirt.
You have tarnished the reputation of Brazil and the Rio Games.
When Paulo Coelho speaks out against the appointment of Blair, he speaks for people across the world, he recognises the shame you have brought upon your own country.
Letter sent via e-mail to Governor Sergio Cabral, governor of Rio de Janeiro, the city in Brazil that will host the 2016 Olympics.
governador@governador.rj.gov.br
Writer Paul Coelho, together with footballer Pele, was part of the winning team that went to Brazil to win the 2016 Olympic Games for Rio. [see Rio 2016]
Also see
Rio 2016 press conference
“Tony Blair consultant for Olympic Games 2016 (Rio)? A man responsible for an illegal war? NOT IN MY NAME. Not in my country.” — Paulo Coelho
“Tony Blair deserves Hague, not Rio. Governor Sergio Cabral, please don’t do that. I was in Copenhagen for athletes, not for murderers.” — Paulo Coelho
I have not heard anything so sickening as war criminal and liar Tony Blair being engaged as consultant for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil. My first reaction, after wishing to throw up, was what can he offer? He is not exactly known for his interest in sport. Associating his name with the Rio 2016 Games is simply to tarnish still further the reputation of the Olympic Games.
As Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho who was part of Rio team in Copenhagen who obtained the Games for Brazil said, I went to Rio to obtain the Games for athletes, not war criminals.
Two million people took to the streets of London at the start of the Iraq War to say Not in Our Name. As did many more millions around the world. They were ignored. Spineless parliamentarians were bamboozled into backing the war. The cabinet was not properly consulted, no proper discussion took place, some cabinet members have said was kept in the dark.
There were no weapons of mass destruction, there was no threat to the Middle East. A war based on lies and a dodgy dossier. The Middle East has been destabilised, the world is a less safe place.
We are still counting the cost. Apart from those killed in Iraq, a country still torn apart by violence, the Iraq War has created a worldwide problem of Islamic extremism and terrorism, including the July 7/7 Bombings in London.
Would you shake hands with Blair, a man whose hands are dripping with blood?
What are Brazilian politicians thinking of to engage someone with the reputation of Tony Blair? A man who is loathed and detested in his own country. A man who has acted as a corporate whore ever since leaving office. A man who whilst in office showed not the slightest interest in sport.
Blair has earned an estimated £15 million since resigning as British Prime Minister in 2007.
The irony should not be lost that Blair has been hired as consultant the day after he appeared before the Iraq Inquiry.
Are Brazilian politicians trying to make the Rio Games a world laughing stock?
The Iraq War had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction or regime change. It was about the corporate rape and pillage of Iraq. The Olympics has long sold out its ideal, it is now a corporate whore. Maybe it is appropriate then that Blair should be engaged as a consultant, maybe even more appropriate that he been adopted as the mascot to represent corporate greed?
Also see
Bringing Democracy to the Middle East
Making a Killing: The Corporate Invasion of Iraq
Occupation and Resistance in Iraq
Rumsfeld attacked by US troops
911 – a route to war or an excuse for war?
Protest against Blair at Chilcot Inquiry – Photos
Blair the dictator bulldozed us into war
Iraq inquiry: Short says cabinet misled on war legality
Rio Olympic team hire Tony Blair for advice on staging 2016 games
