The third edition of the Interbusiness International Business Seminar is an initiative of Paraná University for Higher Education (FESP) in partnership with Florida Christian University in Orlando, Florida. Orlando is Curitiba’s official Sister City. The seminar will be held from May 24-26 at the FESP Auditorium in Curitiba.

This year’s theme for the seminar is “Inform Inspire Transform”.  The purpose of the event is to promote the growth of business and careers by educating and sharing experiences. This year’s edition focuses on developing and expanding content and networking. Consultants, executives, managers, and entrepreneurs in Brazil and abroad will gather to discuss various issues related to career internationalization, personal development, and business.

On Tuesday, May 15, Mayor Luciano Ducci announced the opening of bidding for the first Curitiba Metro. “Curitiba has worked hard on the project and fulfilled all the necessary requirements to earn public approval. The City has also worked with the federal government to improve modeling and is now ready to start the bidding process,” said Ducci in his opening remarks at the public hearing.

“All this hard work will ensure a giant leap in our public transportation system and urban mobility. We’ve now got a design and an intelligent model that will give confidence to citizens and investors. This project represents a full-fledged PPP (Public-Private Partnership) and is unprecedented in the country. Once again Curitiba represents the vanguard among the cities implementing similar models,” added the mayor.

The Memorial City auditorium filled with more than 600 attendees, mostly businessmen and civil service workers, to hear the mayor’s announcement. In attendance were the Order of Lawyers of Brazil (OAB), the Brazilian Institute of Architecture, and the Paraná Commercial Association. Also in attendance were the municipal secretaries and Foundation Institute for Economic Research (FIPE) advisors, the latter responsible for the legal, economic, and financial studies in drafting the Curitiba Metro PPP bidding documents. They were all present to begin the bidding process for deploying and operating a new subway transit system, the largest public works project in the history of Curitiba.

Budgeted at R$2.33 billion (US$1.16 billion), the Curitiba Metro will receive R$1 billion in non-refundable federal grants, R$300 million in non-refundable state funding, as well as R$450 million from the City of Curitiba. The remaining investments will be made up of private grants.

Of the three capitals chosen to receive resources from the federal government’s Big Cities PAC program, Mayor Ducci believes that Curitiba has taken the lead in the bidding for the construction and operation of its subway project. Porto Alegre and Belo Horizonte will also each receive R$1 billion in non-refundable grants for their subway projects.

Among the highlights of the project mentioned in the hearing was the per-passenger cost of a metro fare. The project plan stipulates a maximum technical rate (per-passenger fare collected by metro employees upon entry) of R$1.81 (~US$1.00).

The most attractive investment feature of the PPP model presented by the City of Curitiba and approved by the federal government is the transfer of funding after the project is delivered and the subway is functional. “This ensures that the work will be delivered on or before the deadline, and avoids undue inconvenience to the population and to the city. The company or consortium that wins the bid receives payment when the first passenger boards the subway,” said Ducci. Individual companies or a consortium comprised of up to five companies may participate in the bidding. International groups will also be allowed to participate. In the case of consortia, the head enterprise must be Brazilian. The concession period is 34 years, four for construction and thirty for operation and maintenance. “Investors have every reason to demand an efficient and quality-driven system, which is the basis of a profitable venture,” said Secretary of Administration, Dinorah Botto Portugal Nogara.

Economist and FIPE consultant Bruno Giovannetti said that 74% of the investment in the deployment of the subway will be public funds, and the remaining quarter will require resources from the private sector. The winning bidder will receive their adjusted share of the public funds, plus 30 years of transit fair revenues, as well as ancillary revenues from metro advertising spaces and vehicle parking. “In terms of profits, investors will be getting a 6.5% real interest rate return from the metro project,” said Giovannetti.

Public funds will come in installments when the metro starts running. Federal funds will be transferred in three annual installments of R$333 million. The state will contribute R$300 million total in three annual installments while the City of Curitiba will pay out R$29 million each year for 15 years beginning at year five. “Curitiba will have 14 kilometers of subway united with the existing public transit system. At a single fee, the 14 km will cost the municipality 15 installments of R$29 million”, said URBS president, Mark Isfer. The City Council will open an account with Caixa Economica Federal to deposit federal and state funds, which can only be withdrawn by the private partner. The City’s money will remain in a Guarantee Fund. The fund will continue to grow until the payment of the adjusted installments is made.

The period for public consultation of the bidding documents began the day after the mayor’s public hearing. The period will run from Wednesday, May 16, until June 18. The drafts with appendices as well as the draft contract are available at http://www.metro.curitiba.pr.gov.br. During the public consultation period, interested parties may submit comments and suggestions on the bidding by e-mail to: metrocuritibano@smad.curitiba.pr.gov.br. Anyone can access the draft announcement and the basic designs of the Curitiba Metro during this time. After the public consultation, the City will launch the bidding with construction expected to begin by late this year.

 
Source: http://www.parana-online.com.br/editoria/cidades/news/610470/?noticia=PREFEITURA+INICIA+PROCESSO+DA+LICITACAO+DO+METRO+CURITIBANO

May 16, 2012

Modernist, straight-line thinking may have originated as early as the principles of geometry developed by the ancient Greeks. It became a working philosophy thanks to the19^th century positivist movement in Europe and now governs every facet of American life. It is the foundation behind the concept of “Time is Money”, which permeates American culture so deeply it can be seen everywhere from corporate meetings to a mother’s kitchen. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.

The first large group of colonists to settle in the US, the Puritans, came in the 1600s. They were religious fanatics who were so rigid they were bid farewell from “uptight” England by their neighbors who thought them too uptight. Besides bringing with them to the US the demand for personal religious freedom, the Puritans believed in living in a logical straight line. In other words, they based their lives on linear thinking because time is money. Each day offers a chance to improve. There is a direct line pointing from birth to death, from start to finish, that connects daily behavior with a scoresheet being tabulated by the Almighty. Logically, those who live a good life are rewarded in the end, and vice versa for those who stray from the ideals of Puritan morality. People living in America at this time who didn’t see their lives following the same trajectory as the Puritans were immediately kicked out of town, left to wander cold and alone.

At the same time in Brazil, a country was developing with a different approach from linear thinking. On the other side of the Equator from the Puritans was a world more in touch with a leisurely route — the long way home. In Brazil, life takes the indirect path from point A to point B. Americans viewed Brazil as a world turned upside down. “It’s crazy; they celebrate Christmas in the middle of the summer!”

Even though it would be difficult for Brazilians to refute the principles of geometry that prove a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, Brazilians rarely put this principle into practice. Instead, Brazilian thinking goes something like this: “If the fastest route and the shortest distance from point A to point B is a straight line, does it really matter if we’re not in a hurry? Do we want to live like the Puritans, who rarely had time for fun or laughter? What about slowing down and having a sense of humor?”

In conversation, Brazilians show the same defiance of linear thinking. It is considered rude to ask or answer direct questions. They do not address problems or issues directly, but rather circle around the question, like a dog that circles around its bed before lying down.

As a result of this indirect approach to reaching one’s destination, one of the first things an American learns in Brazil is how long it takes to get things done. Certainly, some of this occurs because of unnecessary bureaucracy or “red tape” that frustrates even Brazilians who are accustomed to it. However, some of the delays occur because Brazilians aren’t in a hurry. For example, why are some lines so long in the supermarket? Yes, they could hire more staff, but also it’s because the people on line aren’t in a hurry. They don’t have their debit card ready when the cashier finishes because the customer is too busy talking to the cashier. Americans regard this behavior as rude or inconsiderate. Brazilians do not see anything wrong with taking one’s time even with a long line. They say, “If everyone else talks to the cashier, why shouldn’t I? Isn’t it rude to hurry and not talk to the cashier? By talking to her, I’m treating her like an equal, a valuable member of society, not a servant.”

Similarly, for any appointment in Brazil, the clock is not the final word. Brazlians are known for being late for appointments because for them time can’t be saved or earned or lost. In the 30 minutes “lost” while being late for an appointment, who knows what might happen. Since destiny is controlled ultimately by the Fates, perhaps it’s important to be late because during those 30 minutes we are destined to meet our soulmate.

Brazilians from the North are even less interested in linear thinking and timeliness. For example, if you are planning a meeting in Manaus, and it’s essential to have everyone arrive on time, you need to warn them by saying, “The meeting tomorrow morning is at 10 am; 10 o’clock by the watch.” In conclusion, for Brazilians time is most definitely not money.

Interestingly, in biographies of the world’s great thinkers, it’s often noted that after struggling for weeks or months with an insurmountable problem, the genius arrives at the solution while shaving, or in a dream. Solving a problem with straight-line linear reasoning works sometimes, but not always. Some of the greatest discoveries in engineering and science came without logic or analysis, but through divine inspiration, unexpected illumination that transcends the rules of math and scientific thinking.

Brazilian men, particularly educated young men from the South who work for international companies, often apologize to Americans for the easygoing approach of their fellow countrymen toward timeliness and their inability to take the most direct route between two points. Meetings and discussions and emails in Brazil follow a circuitous route, as opposed to a straight line.

Businessmen in Brazil who are now under pressure from their superiors to operate more directly and pay more attention to the “time is money” axiom sometimes criticize the women in their own offices. They worry that the women waste time talking about non-work-related subjects and their emails are too long. If a man replies to a woman’s email with only a few sentences, forgetting to ask, “How are you?” and addressing only the immediate issue, the woman thinks he’s being condescending. She will tell the girls in the office, “If he can’t be polite in an email, it’s because he doesn’t take us girls seriously.”

It’s possible there’s an element of truth to the women’s objection. Some Brazilian men don’t value the ideas of women as much as they value input from men. Considering the care Brazilian women take with their clothes, hair, and make-up, I can’t say I’m surprised men aren’t writing longer emails. Why waste time with emails when they could be enjoying the company of their well-dressed female colleagues at lunch or for a beer after work. A pretty woman who is comfortable around men is certainly enough to take a man’s mind off his work, and he’s better off not writing longer emails. Otherwise, he might find himself writing to his male co-workers about the pretty colleague who is flirting with him. When that happens, the direct, busy man becomes a leisurely, indirect poet, and his emails might exclaim, “her dimples colonize her face when she smiles.” (This line, from the author Tom Bissel, should not appear in anyone’s office email.) If this occurs, it will be time to close the office and declare that every day in Brazil is a holiday, and there simply isn’t enough time for being in a hurry. What’s so great about getting to point B, anyway?

Michael Rubin is an American living in Curitiba.

Legendary blues guitarist B.B. King has confirmed five upcoming concert dates this year in Brazil. Arriving at the end of September, the blues master will perform in Curitiba on October 2, 2012. His five shows will take place in Rio, São Paulo, and Curitiba.

Mr. King’s Brazilian tour will begin on September 29, 2012, with the first show at Vivo Rio. On October 2, the blues great will come to Curitiba to play in the elegant Teatro Guaira. The remaining three concerts will take place in São Paulo at Via Funchal and the Bourbon Street Music Club.

B.B. King was born in a small cabin on a cotton plantation in Mississippi in the Deep South of the US. His guitar talents have awarded him with the nickname, “King of the Blues.” He has appeared many times on lists of the Top Ten Guitarists of All Time, and he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

B.B. King

Many of the greatest electric guitarists, such as George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck, have confessed to the influence B.B. King has had on their work. His status in the guitar world borders on the level of idolatry. In fact, the Gibson Guitar Corporation launched a B. B. King “Lucille” Model, the name King has given to his beloved Gibson electric guitar. In 2005, Gibson made a special run of 80 Gibson Lucilles, referred to as the ’80th Birthday Lucille’. The first prototype was given as a birthday gift to King, and he has been using that guitar ever since.

Despite his acclaimed love for Brazil, at the age of 86, King’s touring schedule is not as vigorous as it once was. Six years ago, he did a tour of Europe, which he called his Farewell Tour. Since then, he has continued to perform, but infrequently. Blues fans are already inquiring about ticket sales, as the last time Mr. King came to Brazil was 2010, and he will play only one show in Curitiba. However, no announcements have yet been made about ticket prices or when tickets will go on sale.

By Eva P. Bueno

We all know that Paraná has some beautiful and interesting places. Granted, most of us have only gone to the beautiful places, when we could afford to go. The beaches or Foz do Iguaçu come to mind. However, there are others, and some people have gone to Lapa, Antonina, or Morretes, among others, to enjoy the architecture, the food, or both. Others, more venturesome, have traveled to Paranaguá and — if they had an open mind— toured the beautiful, old colonial part of the city. Too bad we Brazilians prefer to sing the praises of what others have and not what we have; otherwise, we would see Paranaguá for the jewel it is. The beauty there is in the eyes of the proverbial beholder. We better hurry and behold because the rot is setting in.

Besides the beautiful places, there are the interesting ones. One of them is the cathedral in Maringá. At first, during its construction and when it was just finished, it stood there in all its gray ugliness and looked more like a dunce’s hat than a religious building. However, nowadays, after it was explained, we see it as how I think it wants us to see it: a modernistic rendition of a religious icon. It is an interesting idea in an interesting city, with a park and several praças nearby to complement the church.

Cathedral at Maringá

Let’s say you are not awed by cathedrals built by human hands. In that case, you can always go to Vila Velha. Never been? Neither have I. Curiously enough, though, many non-Brazilians have and report that it is an interesting place. Why should it not be? How many places in the world reveal the effects of centuries of rain and wind, eating away at the stone and leaving eerie figures that remind us of … what? Probably what people tell us they remind us of.

Vila Velha

In Paraná, you can also find the positively weird, like a town that a deranged man was once building somewhere in the deep north. He had a little sítio and was constructing, with his own hands, a place that reminded everyone who saw it of a stone city with small huts and a rustic statuary of a religious nature. The person who saw this site and told me about it (in the old days of the 1990’s) said the man/artist was preparing for the end of the world, and that this town was the only one that was going to survive. I suppose some of his calculations were a bit off.

Beautiful and weird places exist in the US also, where I live now. Once I went to the former headquarters of the guru Paramahansa Yogananda in California. He was the founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship, which taught people to forget the riches of this world and to seek peace and enlightenment. The property was fabulous. That is, what remained of it gave visitors a hint of how fabulous it had been. The sea had come and taken the palace away, leaving what once were the lavish front porches and the small pool where, one of the blessed-out attendants informed us, the guru used to exercise every morning. Looking out from the edge of the porch onto the property, where the sea was now happily continuing its eating away at the human construction, gave me a deeper understanding of what the guru once wrote about the transience of the world. Good for him he got to enjoy the palace while still in this life form, though.

Another such monument is one where I live in San Antonio, Texas: our beloved Alamo. It is cast forever in history with the slogan: “Remember the Alamo.” Why should we? Because, according to the pamphlets in the Alamo, and all American history books, a group of brave men fought here to the death, never surrendering to the attacking Mexican forces commanded by the evil Santa Anna. Or at least that is one version of the Alamo story, one the mother of San Antonio’s current mayor, Julián Castro, does not agree with. About two years ago Rosie Castro said that those heroes in the Alamo were nothing but “a bunch of drunks and crooks and slave-holding imperialists who conquered land that didn’t belong to them.” She finished off by saying she hated the Alamo and everything it stands for.

That was a shock — a born San Antonian who doesn’t like the Alamo, our biggest tourist attraction! Her reasons, political and historical, cannot be argued with, and I won’t because this is not the place. But what I want to say is that it is interesting how even a seemingly beloved monument, a symbol of something that it seems everybody agrees upon, is disliked and even hated by some.

As monuments go, the poor Alamo has had more than its fair share of trouble. As anyone in San Antonio knows (even those who did not live here at the time), in 1982 Ozzy Osbourne, the rock musician, was arrested for peeing on the Alamo. Some say he just peed in a flower pot. No matter, as a result, he was banned from playing in the city for ten years.

The Alamo in San Antonio, Texas

Now, barely two years after the “Rosie Castro affair,” another man, 21-year-old Daniel Athens, was caught peeing on the Alamo. This time, the deed was done not in a flower pot, but on the sacred walls themselves. Athens was promptly arrested and charged with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

The incident was cause for much hilarity, as we watched TV reporters putting the camera right on the stain, and then interviewing some specialists who said the urine might ultimately destroy the building. Urine destroying the building? Really? Of course, there should be more investigations, more committees, more reports. The cleanup will cost thousands of dollars.

I wonder how many times in Paraná our interesting places and national monuments have been equally defiled by those who cannot control themselves and pee in public, or even in sacred spaces? As far as I can recall, no praça in Curitiba is free from a sometimes faint, sometimes strong smell of urine. Even the praça around the famous cathedral of Maringá has not escaped this fate.

Perhaps the dilemma is that at the moment of the encounter with those places that are so heavy with meaning, the experience can be so overwhelming that the physical needs of some people (sober or not) cannot be controlled. Perhaps the solution is that the authorities should be more realistic and build public restrooms close to monuments, zones of interest, praças, etc. Maybe people with weak bladders should be required to wear diapers when visiting such places?

Eva Bueno is from Paraná and currently lives and teaches in San Antonio, Texas. She occasionally writes books and essays on Latin American and Brazilian literature, popular culture, women writers, politics, and the meaning of life.

[Photos of Vila Velha by Michael Rubin]

Before Gisele and Beyoncé and Madonna, there was Marilyn. In the 1950s, Marilyn Monroe was possibly the most famous woman in the world. She captured the imagination of anyone who saw her photograph or watched her movies — singing and dancing and exhaling the breath of passion into men all over the world.

For anyone not familiar with the tragic life of the talented Ms. Monroe, there is an opportunity for a “behind-the-scenes” look at the personal life of one of the most famous stars in American cinema history in the new film, My Week with Marilyn (Sete Dias Com Marilyn).

For anyone unfamiliar with the actress Michelle Williams, here is a chance to see why Ms. Williams, who is only in her early 30s, has already been nominated three times for an Oscar, including for this performance. Despite her youth, Williams has appeared in over two dozen films. (She first rose to popular attention in the teen TV series, Dawson’s Creek.)

Laurence Olivier

The setting for My Week with Marilyn is England, where Marilyn Monroe arrives at the age of 30 at the peak of her career to make a movie with Laurence Olivier, England’s best-known stage actor. Olivier is so well-known in England that a company is producing a brand of cigarettes in his name. Like a hidden camera, we observe Marilyn on and off the “set” struggle to live up to her reputation. She is consumed with fear, intimidated by Olivier’s theatrical training and his perfectionist tendencies. It doesn’t help that Olivier is her co-star and the director of the film and twenty years her senior. The framework is a film within a film, with Olivier starring and producing and directing himself in a comedy entitled, The Prince and the Showgirl, which was a real film shot in 1956 and released in 1957. (It’s available on DVD.)

The story of Olivier’s frustrating attempt to capture Marilyn’s talents for the making of The Prince and the Showgirl is told through the eyes of a young man named Colin Clark, who was hired as a “gopher” (“I go for this and that”) on the Olivier film. The entire story is based on fact, as Clark kept a diary of his experiences at Olivier Productions, the first job he ever had in his life. He is a 23-year-old innocent man/boy, who is in love with the movies; and the way he manages to land his first job working for Olivier’s production company, despite his upper class family’s dismissal of Colin’s silly aspirations, opens the film in a spirited and humorous fashion before Ms. Monroe arrives on the scene.

Marilyn Monroe, Los Angeles, 1950

Much of My Week with Marilyn takes place on the set of The Prince and Showgirl, thus providing a stimulating peek at how movies are made. There have been other movies that look at how films are made, for example the Peter O’Toole film, The Stunt Man. Many films also describe the film industry in general and the struggles of actors to find rewarding work and earn money in an industry with 95 percent unemployment. For example, there’s the Dustin Hoffman comedy, Tootsie.

Through Clark’s diaries and thanks to Ms. Monroe’s inclusion of him into her inner circle, My Week with Marilyn offers an extraordinarily intimate depiction of her life. We desperately want her to conquer her constant fear of abandonment and her nervousness and lack of confidence, appeased by her reckless use of pills. (She died at age 36 of a drug overdose.)

Watching delicate scenes of her troubled marriage with the most famous writer of his time, Arthur Miller, are painful. (Miller wrote the play, Death of a Salesman, among others, which has been produced hundreds of times, and is currently playing on Broadway starring Philip Seymour Hoffman.) Miller was Monroe’s third husband, and even though they had only been married a short time when they arrived in England, Miller has already tired of her. He says her enormous needs are keeping him from his writing, and he soon departs England, telling Olivier, “She’s devouring me.” Monroe is left to sleep alone to wallow in the misery of abandonment.

Kenneth Branagh

My Week with Marilyn is also an interesting account of Laurence Olivier, (played by the outstanding British actor, Kenneth Branagh) and his desperate attempts to make a simple comedy using the difficult Monroe. She never arrived on set on time, and forced Olivier, whose production company was financing the film, to do many takes of the same scene to redo Marilyn’s mistakes. He despised her lack of professionalism, nervously forgetting her lines and forcing the shooting to fall behind schedule.

On a deeper level, the film offers the startling contrast between Olivier’s age and command of acting and Marilyn’s youthful inexperience. Olivier’s wife, Vivien Leigh, (played by the lovely Julia Ormond) who had starred in Gone With the Wind, appears on set a few times. She tells Marilyn she was hoping to be cast by her husband in The Prince and the Showgirl, but Olivier refused, telling her that at age 43 she was too old.

Julia Ormond

With Olivier’s company producing The Prince and the Showgirl, he was making clear his desire to capitalize on the fame of film stars. Although Olivier was not new to film acting, he was most famous for his roles on the British stage, particularly in numerous works by Shakespeare. By choosing to direct the film himself, Olivier was secretly confessing that the fame of stage acting wasn’t enough for him.

From the start, Olivier is astonished how someone with little formal training in acting like Marilyn Monroe could be so famous, and his envy of her “box office appeal” creates nonstop tension between the two. Their professional backgrounds and approaches to the craft of acting couldn’t be more divergent. Olivier and all British stage actors of that time were trained classically for years in the rigorous British system, performing Shakespeare hundreds of times on stage.

Monroe, who travels to England bringing her own acting coach, has just begun acting lessons in the Stanislavsky technique, developed by a Russian actor of the same name and brought to the US by the acting teachers Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler. (Lee Strasberg once commented, “I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of actors and actresses, and there are only two that stand out way above the rest. Number one is Marlon Brando, and the second is Marilyn Monroe.”) This acting technique soon came to be known as The Method, or method acting, and was later adopted by many of the great modern film stars of Hollywood such as Brando and Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro, but which in 1956, Olivier considered trivial and possibly even destructive for the way the American director Elia Kazan used it to influence Olivier’s wife, Vivien Leigh. Olivier waged numerous fights on the set of The Prince and the Showgirl with Monroe’s acting coach, Paula Strasberg, Lee’s wife, convinced that Paula’s direct access to Monroe at all times was taking over Olivier’s job as director of the film.

However, during the course of reviewing the “daily rushes” (the scenes of the film that have just been shot that day), Olivier and the rest of the cast and crew eventually understand that despite the wasted time and money, Monroe is worth the risk. When viewing the scenes where she performs well, everyone is mesmerized. She has unquestionable talent, and “the camera is in love with her.” At the conclusion of filming The Prince and the Showgirl, Olivier is forced to admit that all of his classical stage training means nothing on film, and that some gifted individuals, such as Marilyn, are able to capture a film with a natural instinct that transfixes the audience. However, Olivier is too proud to tell Marilyn this, and even goes so far as to tell Colin Clark, “I won’t tell her. If she knew it, it would ruin her talent.”

Marilyn Monroe

Unfortunately for Ms. Monroe, she never trusts her natural acting instincts, and she is utterly intimidated by the power and formal training of Olivier and the other British cast members. With the exception of Dame Sybil Thorndike, (played by the fabulous Judi Dench of the recent James Bond movies), all the other members of the British cast find Ms. Monroe annoying. Her lack of confidence and need for attention and affection drive her to rely on the “kindness of strangers” such as the production assistant whose diary provides this story. Colin Clark falls in love with her the instant she utters, “Please, call me Marilyn” and does everything he can to help her function under the demands of Olivier on the set and the confines of her enormous fame whenever she is out in public. She is instantly recognized wherever she goes and while enjoying the attention, finds the confinement of fame overwhelming for her fragile personality. The only moment of happiness for Marilyn during the week of filming comes when she flees the set and spends the day in the British countryside with Clark, abandoning the need to “play the part of Marilyn” and simply being herself, flirting with Colin and allowing him to see her naked.

My Week with Marilyn also exhibits a complex perspective on Marilyn’s delicate emotional state by providing small but important details of her life. We learn that Marilyn never knew her father, which caused her great distress, and that she had been raised by friends and relatives after her mother, who worked as a film editor in Hollywood, was institutionalized for mental illness. Her lack of a normal childhood partially explains her burning desire to continue acting and attracting fame, rather than quitting the profession she found so stressful to become a full-time wife and mother with one of her three husbands.

In the scene in the countryside, where she goes skinny-dipping (swimming nude) with Colin Clark and exchanges a kiss with him, it is immediately obvious how vulnerable she is and in need of love and attention, grabbing at the heartstrings of the nearest male. And in one brief glimpse, we see on her bedside table that she has been reading Ulysses by James Joyce, one of the most difficult books in English ever written. She lacked education and training, but she was very intelligent.

Michelle Williams

If you are interested in the life of Marilyn Monroe, this movie is worth seeing. If you are a fan of great acting, this movie is a gem for the performance of Michelle Williams. Attempting to capture the labyrinthine personality of Marilyn on screen is an enormously difficult task. This film was astoundingly fortunate to find an actress the same age as Marilyn, who could capture what it was that made Marilyn Monroe so extraordinary. It is the job of an actress to portray a character on screen, but portraying a character as grand and sweeping as Marilyn isn’t easy. Ms. Williams has done it better than anyone with the exception of Marilyn herself. Never once during this movie do we think of Michelle Williams. Instead, we see only the sexy, charismatic, alluring, troubled, nervous, insecure, talented, complex, kind, and intelligent actress the world knew and loved as Marilyn Monroe.

*********************

My Week With Marilyn

Director: Simon Curtis

Starring: Michelle Williams

Now playing in Curitiba (Sete Dias com Marilyn)

Michael Rubin is an American living in Curitiba.

Michelin-starred French chef Alain Burnel will come to Curitiba next week to cook dinner on three separate evenings at the Restaurant Durski. The menus with wine pairings will be especially prepared by the chef on May 7, 8, and 9.

French Chef Alain Burnel

World-renowned chef Alain Burnel began at the age of 14 as an apprentice baker. Later he became head chef of the three-starred Michelin restaurant Oustau Baumanière and remained there for nearly 30 years. Today he is considered a world expert on the cuisine of Provence.

Mr. Burnel is an aficionado of classical cuisine and believes in the return to the family kitchen. Categorically opposed to molecular gastronomy, he finds the idea of changing the flavors and textures of foods absurd.

Chef Junior Durski is an admirer of the work of the chef and rightfully so. For Durski, Alain Burnel practices exactly what he himself has always admired — classical cuisine. “He appreciates classical cuisine, with a dish well-served, steaming and fragrant, as I do,” said Durski. “So it will be a pleasure to open the doors of our kitchen to him. It will most certainly be a fantastic experience for myself and my clients,” he concluded.

There will be three separate menus during the three nights the chef will work at the restaurant, all with wine pairings by Porto a Porto Importadora.

Menus

May 7:

AMUSE BOUCHE:

Shrimp and mango tartare, with lemon zest and hazelnut olive oil

Pairing: Champagne Deutz Brüt Classic

PRÉMICES:

Carnaroli creamy risotto and asparagus greens with a hint of black truffles and grilled scallops

Pairing: Champagne Deutz Brüt Rosé

MER: Bass cooked at low temperature with floral spices

Pairing: Clos Blanc Floridene Dobordieu – Graves, Bordeaux

TERRE:

Suprema of jerk chicken with truffles and our own suprema sauce

Pairing: Greywacke Pinot Nor – Marlbourgh

EPILOGUE:

Mango in fresh mint perfume, spiced jelly, vanilla lime cream and wild berry fruit compote

Pairing: Sauternes Doisy – Daene Debordieu

DESSERT:

100% chocolate crepe filled with fresh seasonal fruit and perfumed with Kirsch and whipped cream

Petit Fours

Brazilian Coffee

Pairing: Madeira Malmsey 10-year

May 8:

AMUSE BOUCHE:

Duo of Verrines

Cream of roasted red peppers, ginger and honey

Cream of fowl with black truffle scented white truffle oil

Pairing: Champagne Deutz Brüt Classic

PRÉMICES:

Shrimp ravioli, clam and leek in Tartuffo butter

Pairing: Champagne Deutz Brüt Rosé

MER: slow-cooked bass in olive oil Provencal-style and petit vegetables

Pairing: Clos Blanc Floridene Dobordieu – Graves, Bordeaux

TERRE:

Loin of lamb in puff pastry crust in morel red wine sauce and smoked mashed sweet potato

Pairing: Château Fleur Cardinale Gran Cru Classé – Saint-Emilion

EPILOGUE:

Verrine of papaya and mango with spices, olive oil and lemon ice cream

Pairing: Sauternes Doisy – Daene Debordieu

DESSERT:

Nougat Ice Cream à Baumanière and strawberry sauce

Pairing: Madeira Malmsey 10 year
May 9:

AMUSE BOUCHE:

Verrine of cream of potato perfumed with truffle oil and crispy bacon

Pairing: Champagne Deutz Brüt Classic (France)

PRÉMICES:

Château Baumanière – style white beans

Pairing: Champagne Deutz Brüt Rosé (France)

MER:

Slow-cooked sea bass in basil Provençal

Pairing: Clos Blanc Floridene Dubordieu – Graves, Bordeaux (France)

TERRE:

Duck with orange sauce (traditional Baumanière recipe)

Pairing: Greywacke Pinot Noir – Marlborough (New Zealand)

EPILOGUE:

Carpaccio of strawberries and spices

Pairing: Sauternes Doisy – Daene Dubordieu (France)

DESSERT:

Baumanière crepes soufflé in Grand Marnier

Pairing: Madeira Malmsey 10 year (France)

INFORMATION:

Chef Alain Burnel at Restaurant Durski

May 7, 8, and 9 at 8pm

Av. Jaime Reis, 254 – São Francisco, Curitiba-PR

Reservations: (41) 9166-8925

Cost: R$690 per person

 By Eva P. Bueno

Those of us Brazilians born dangerously around the middle of the 20th century can still recall a time when — at least in the interior of Paraná — municipal and state elections were a special time of the year. They generated fact, myth, and fiction. (The national elections, we all sadly recall, were none of our business, since the military took care of them among themselves.)

One thing the local elections gave us during the campaigns was the possibility to get free t-shirts. There weren’t many, of course, and you always ran the risk of looking foolish after the election if your candidate (or the one from whom you got a t-shirt) lost. There was no end to the mockery.

Another thing that the always resourceful Brazilians did at that time was to transform the many meters of white muslin used for political banners into more useful things — from rags to clean the floor, to curtains, and even to clothes. I still remember a boy in my elementary school years in a poor neighborhood in Maringá who had several items of clothing that had clearly been made out of the “campaign muslin”; even though his mother bleached the fabric, a faint memory of the letters remained. Depending on the light, you could see vowels and consonants dancing in his shirts. Since most of us had “campaign muslin” items in our house, we didn’t dare mock the boy.

There was also the sheer enjoyment of those cars with loudspeakers driving up and down the streets. Sometimes the candidate was on top of the car or truck, throwing candies, pencils, and, of course, leaflets telling the electorate what he would do if elected.

The candidate was always a man in my memory. The only woman mayor I recall was Dona Anita, who was the mayor of Marialva one time, around 1960. I don’t remember much of her campaign besides one very loud comício in which two girls about my age sang together in the stands decorated with festoons. All of my friends hated those two girls — found them ugly, their hair ugly, their clothes ugly. But we couldn’t deny they could sing. We never discovered where they came from or where they went after the campaign was over. Could they have been a mirage produced by the campaign?

It certainly wouldn’t have surprised me to be fooled by a mirage, as there were many strange things that happened during election time in Brazil. For my ‘carless’ family, for instance, one of the strangest things was to receive rides in people’s cars wherever we wanted, as long as there was a voter in the group, and — important thing — this voter declared not to have made up his/her mind. Although I could not enjoy this wonderful mode of free transportation myself, my brothers reported wild fun going from voting place to voting place with friends who always said they had not decided whom to vote for. Then again, how much fun could it have been just going from place to place, unless it was the sheer enjoyment of spending the money of a candidate whom we thought/suspected/knew was not going to do anything for anybody once elected?

The strangest event that occurred during election time, and possibly the most persuasive voting technique ever, was the one involving a pair of boots. I did not see this myself, but heard enough about it that it must either have been true, or was so good it should be true. The technique consisted of the following: the candidate climbed the stage for the comício with several pairs of boots, and asked who was going to vote for him, adding that he had all these boots to give away to his supporters. The people attending naturally raised their hands. The cabos eleitorais—the candidate’s staff and sympathizers — organized the people in lines, got their names, and gave each person one boot of the pair. The candidate then climbed back on to the stage, and told the people that, once elected, he would give each one the other foot of the pair of boots.

Like many of these semi-rural legends, no one knows if the technique resulted in the election of the candidate. But it certainly was a good technique, and it brings me to the second part of this discussion – the current campaign and election process in the US.

Let me be clear that election time in the US today is a world away from my childhood in Brazil. For those who do not know, political campaigns in the US are not limited to a fixed time and can last for years. As a result, the campaigns are very expensive, requiring TV advertising, etc. Candidates pay for their campaign expenses by using PACs. A PAC stands for Political Action Committee. I’ll avoid a lengthy discussion of PACs, but suffice it to say that in the United States, where there is a (naïve) belief in the power of the law, this subject has been bandied around quite a bit, with acts of Congress, regulations of campaign spending, and always the pressure of different groups trying to influence elections.

Well, until now, not too different from what we had (still have?) in Brazil, and perhaps in all other countries. Winning an election is, after all, nothing if not a popularity contest, and popularity can be manipulated because it is firmly grounded in image, and image itself can be manipulated (just ask anyone who has Photoshop on his computer or a cool car to show off).

The size and power of PACs, and thus their ability to influence the outcome of elections radically changed in 2010 in the good ol’ US of A when the Supreme Court (not coincidentally heavily Republican) ruled that PACs can receive as much money as they can get. No limits, except a very dubious one: a PAC (now called a Super PAC) cannot coordinate directly with the candidate. They can say anything about the competitors. They can fabricate things. They can misquote. They can quote out of context. They can manipulate public opinion as far as their money will get them. And, not surprisingly, there are plenty of American millionaires and billionaires willing to put their money where their political interests are.

Who profits from the zillions of dollars that the Super PACs get and spend? And where precisely do they spend the money? As anyone living in the US who has a television will tell you, they spend the money on advertising. That is, the zillions of dollars benefit directly the media industry and the advertising industry. Even conceding that the money will give employment to people in these industries, the American people in general do not profit at all. On the contrary, one can say they may do damage to themselves if they end up voting against their own interests as a result of being bamboozled by the jazzy ads and the mud-slinging campaigns funded by the millionaires.

I can’t help but think that back in my childhood those folks who got a few meters of lettered muslin, or a ride to the election area, or candy from a passing truck, or one foot of the boot had it better. Even the ancient Romans, in all their decadence, knew that a circus without bread was not a winning combination. In other words, entertainment is good, but there is a moment when it is better to have something tangible in your hand, your mouth, or on your feet.

If the Super PACs wanted my opinion (which they don’t, of course), I’d say choose one worthy cause and invest in it in honor of their candidate. Heaven knows US education, health, transportation, etc. need help desperately. But then again, would the ads be so effective if the people were healthy, employed and well educated?

If this Super PAC thing continues, what we have coming in the USA is the unspoken and unacknowledged dictatorship of the rich. Unless the everyday people can rise above the avalanche of political ads, which have already begun for the election in November and will only get worse, the Super PACs will triumph. Will people see the truth — that wolves do come dressed as sheep, or as cheerleaders, ballerinas, and even cute little children?

Eva Bueno is from Paraná and currently lives and teaches in San Antonio, Texas. She occasionally writes books and essays on Latin American and Brazilian literature, popular culture, women writers, politics, and the meaning of life.

 MOVIE REVIEW

Few people have had a greater impact on modern society than Sigmund Freud. He is believed by many to be the father of psychology, although plunging the depths of the human mind can probably be traced back to the ancient Greeks or earlier. However, Freud certainly should be credited as the creator of psychoanalysis, or the “talking cure” as it was sometimes called. The initiation of Freud’s techniques and the exploration of his methods are the subject of David Cronenberg’s latest film, A Dangerous Method. (Playing at Shopping Novo Batel in English with Portuguese subtitles.)

Sigmund Freud (front) with Carl Jung

If you find exploring the unconscious interesting, you’ll enjoy this film. For those who have seen the film’s tawdry advertising — two of the 20^th century’s greatest minds battling for the love of the same mysterious woman, you’ll be disappointed. This film is a dialog-filled exploration of human unconscious desires, and Freud and his disciple Carl Jung are not in love with the same woman. The advertising is deceptive.

The film is a based on a book that, using Freud’s and Jung’s correspondence, reconstructs the fascinating relationship between Freud and Jung with the appropriate historical accuracy. Freud began as Jung’s mentor, and both men’s work spawned the dawning field of psychology. Like the real events depicted in the film, all the characters are based on real people.

Freud is played by the brilliant actor, Viggo Mortensen, and his chosen successor, Carl Jung, is the German actor Michael Fassbender, who is currently appearing (in Curitiba) in the New York-based film, Shame.

Jung’s character has far more screen time than Freud’s, as the mystery woman in question ends up as Jung’s lover, not Freud’s. The movie opens when she (Keira Knightley) arrives, screaming, at Jung’s clinic in Zürich, Switzerland, in 1904. The character, Sabina Spielrein, a Russian daughter of a wealthy Jewish businessman, profits greatly from Jung’s first attempt at the talking cure that Freud invents. Sabina remains as Jung’s patient for years.

Viggo Mortensen

There is ample discussion between Sabina and Jung regarding her treatment and diagnosis, enough to hold the interest of psychology students in the audience. For those viewers unfamiliar with the tenets of psychoanalysis, the story line will be slow and overly talky. Like many European movies, there is much debating but little action.

For example, one of the film’s biggest moments occurs when Freud realizes his fundamental differences with Jung, his favorite disciple, will render Jung unwilling to carry on Freud’s work. Freud faints in Jung’s presence.

Despite their engaging conversations, such as the time they first met at Freud’s home in Vienna and talked for 13 hours nonstop, they eventually arrive at different interpretations of the causes of emotional problems in their patients. Jung comes to resent Freud’s strict adherence to sexual repression as the root cause of all neuroses as well as Freud’s lack of openness to new ideas. Freud sees the gulf between them symbolized by Jung not being Jewish as well as living without financial concerns, thanks to Jung’s wealthy wife.

Jung hopes to open up his mentor to the free exchange of ideas, but Freud, a Jewish doctor from Austria, refuses. In another famous encounter between the two geniuses, Freud invites Jung to accompany him to the US for America’s first direct exposure to their controversial ideas. On the voyage to the US, Jung reveals a dream he’s had, which Freud sees as Jung’s dismissal of Freud’s authority. Jung disagrees with the interpretation of his own dream, and then asks Freud to describe a dream he’s had to Jung. Freud refuses to share his dream, preferring to maintain his role as mentor, rather than allowing Jung a window into Freud’s unconscious.

Michael Fassbender

The larger ideas that separate these men’s theories are not deeply explored in the film. As these intellectual giants developed numerous theories throughout their lifetimes on the inner workings of the mind, there isn’t time in the film to discuss all of them. Even some of their most famous discoveries are never mentioned, such as Freud’s theories of the structure of the unconscious or Jung’s work with archetypes and his invention of the theory of the collective unconscious.

An insightful glimpse into the pitfalls of psychology is provided when a third doctor briefly enters the film, an unconventional therapist named Dr. Otto Gross, who is also a real historical figure. Dr. Gross doesn’t believe in monogamy and has several children by different women. He also sees nothing unethical about seducing his female patients because he believes he’s furthering Freud’s focus on sexual repression by encouraging his patients to unleash all their inhibitions, setting their libidos free.

Gross is played by the talented actor, Vincent Cassel. Cassel is best known as the ballet director who mentors Natalie Portman in Black Swan. He also appeared alongside Viggo Mortensen in Cronenberg’s previous film, the excellent Eastern Promises.

Vincent Cassel

A Dangerous Method also reveals some interesting moments reflecting the historical period, such as a device for recording an exercise in “free association” which Jung first tries on his wife using Sabina as his assistant. There’s another startling glimpse of history with Jung’s wife just after she’s given birth to their first child. She apologizes to her husband for giving birth to a girl; meanwhile in the corner, the baby is held nursing at the breast of a nursemaid. This indication of life in wealthy Europe at the beginning of the 19^th century – a mother apologizing for not having a son and not nursing her own child – exhibits the film’s attentive concern with period details.

For those familiar with the previous work of the director, David Cronenberg, this film will come as a surprise. His earlier films have stretched the boundaries of the believable, combining fact and fantasy into a bizarre brew that sometimes leaves viewers confused. His earlier films include The Fly, Spider, eXistenZ, M. Butterfly, Naked Lunch, and Crash, which was based on a book about people who enjoy the eroticism of car crashes. However, Cronenberg has also directed some films considered masterpieces, namely Eastern Promises, an exacting thriller about the Russian mob in London, and Dead Ringers, the true story of a pair of brilliant identical-twin gynecologists who die together from drug overdoses.

It seems Cronenberg is often drawn to stories, both true and fictional, with people who are pushed to their limit, forced to test their physical and emotional boundaries. In his latest three films, A History of Violence, Eastern Promises, and now A Dangerous Method, he has left behind his more fantastical work to tell straightforward stories with linear plots.

True to his taste for extraordinary tales, Cronenberg insists on eliciting the steamier side of psychology, as we watch Jung wrestle with his own inner demons over the violation of his ethical code for sleeping with Sabina, who openly offers her virginity to Jung. Sabina later goes on to become a famous psychoanalyst in her own right in Russia.

Historical accounts as fascinating as the one told here, involving the personal lives of famous doctors, are worth telling more than once, and this one has. In 2002, the same story was told in a European film, which was made in English and is available on DVD. The earlier film is called The Soul Keeper (Jornada da Alma) and has a different emphasis than Cronenberg’s effort. The unusual sexual rituals between Sabina and her doctor are avoided in the earlier version, and Freud does not appear in that film either. Also, the second half of The Soul Keeper follows Sabina’s career in Russia after Jung terminates their relationship, as she establishes her own school for troubled children, and her eventual murder at the hands of the Nazis for being Jewish.

Cronenberg invites us to eavesdrop on Sabina telling Jung of her masturbatory fantasies and the sexual excitement she enjoyed when she was punished as a young girl by her father, who forces her to kiss the hand that has spanked her. During the course of years of her therapy, Jung descends into the depths of Sabina’s psyche so far that he can’t resist her offer to take her virginity and to assist her in her masochistic desires.

Keira Knightley

The role of Sabina is played beautifully by Keira Knightley, providing her with her most challenging role as an actress thus far. Not only does she speak English with a Russian accent, but she must explode in spasmodic hysterics in the first moments of the film and later, when she’s cured of her hysteria, revel in half-nude erotic pleasures while Jung beats her with a belt.

As a historical study, the film is packed with importance, although far from riveting. It is stimulating to observe the “chinks in the armor” of these two great men: Freud, for his rigidity and arrogance; and Jung, for his need of a mistress in the midst of a marriage to his wealthy, loving, and supportive wife. The performances by Fassbender and Knightley and Mortensen are brilliant, and it is certainly a welcome addition to the typical Hollywood romance for its challenging discussions of the unconscious mind.

Director: David Cronenberg

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Keira Knightley, Viggo Mortensen

Now playing in Curitiba (Um Método Perigoso)

Michael Rubin is an American living in Curitiba.

By B. Michael Rubin

Language is the key to opening the lock of any society or culture. This is evident even in “primitive” cultures, like the tribes of the Amazon, some of whom have never seen a white person. Many of these tribes have no written language at all, offering us a glimpse into a world as old as mankind itself and as foreign as meeting inhabitants of another planet.

Although most people think of writing as a job rather than a joy, and few people have time even to read an entire book these days, it is impossible to imagine living without the written word. Could a teenager today survive without Facebook or Twitter or email? Could we function without the sign on the front of the store telling us what time it opens? Language is an essential part of our lives.

By examining differences between two languages, we can look through the keyhole of one culture into another. For example, in English there is a word, “babysitter” that is difficult to translate into Portuguese. Is she sitting on the baby? Google Translate offers no translation for this word. The closest word in Portuguese would be “nursemaid” or “nanny,” but these are not the same as a babysitter.

Luckily, it has nothing to do with sitting on babies, even though it can be used as both a noun, the person, and a verb, as in, “I babysat for my cousin yesterday.”

A babysitter is a person, generally a female teenager, who makes money by caring for the children of her neighbors. If a babysitter is reliable and hardworking, she can work every weekend of the year, as she will be hired by more than one family. The fees babysitters charge vary depending on the city or town where she works and also how many children she must supervise.

When American parents are too busy to be with their children, a babysitter is employed. This can happen anytime after 3 or 4 pm, when babysitters normally finish their school day. They are most commonly employed when the parents need a “break” from their parenting duties, and they go out to a party or a restaurant or the movies. They leave their child or children at home. In the US, it’s rare for parents to ask older children or relatives to take on the responsibility of a babysitter.

When I use this word in conversation with Brazilians, I need to explain what a babysitter does. It left me wondering, How could someone who is kind and gentle, experienced with supervising children, and essential to every American middle-class family, be unknown in Brazil?

The obvious answer is that babysitters essentially don’t exist in Brazil. Brazilian parents pay private schools to educate their children, and they pay pre-schools or “daycare” specialists to supervise their children before they are old enough to go to school. However, Brazilian parents paying someone to watch their children at night while they go to a party simply doesn’t happen.

Parents here don’t go to parties or restaurants or movies without their children. It’s not something they even debate or think about – it just isn’t done. The children join their parents when they go out socially because Brazilian families aren’t separated. How is it possible that American and Brazilian cultures could be so different?

This one-word linguistic keyhole illustrates a remarkable contast. There is a fundamental divergence between the two cultures in the way families raise their children. And if children are being raised differently here than in the US, then the children will grow up to raise their children differently.

There is a disparity between the US and Brazil in the way adults raise children. In Brazil, children are included as a part of adult society. They learn “table manners” — how to sit quiety at a table in a restaurant and not interrupt adults when they are talking. They learn how to interact with adults, and how to keep their party clothes clean even while eating. They also learn how to stay up all night like their parents if it’s a big celebration like a wedding. In the US, young children out after 10 pm are considered a sign of bad parenting.

In Brazil, children are learning socialization skills they will use when they are adults and skills that American children lack. Children here learn to make eye contact when talking to adults, and they overcome the shyness American children exhibit when talking to more than one person. Brazilian children learn how to kiss adults politely on the cheek or shake hands if boys are greeting men.

Children in Brazil are taught to stand still when speaking and to speak loudly enough to be heard. They learn the responsibility of watching younger siblings at social gatherings, as there are often times when the adults and children are engaged in separate activities at the same location. Thus, it’s common for a teenage girl to already have experience feeding a baby with a bottle, her little sister or niece, knowing how to cradle an infant’s head when children are too young to hold the weight of their own heads. These are skills only found in American teenage girls who have worked as babysitters, a small percentage of the total population.

When they are out in public, Brazilian mothers hold hands with their sons or daughters, even when the children have grown into adults. Because children spend less time apart from their parents, public signs of affection among families are normal. Sisters and even female friends hold hands. This obvious show of familial closeness is symbolic of the coherence of families. In the US, you would never see a teenager holding hands  with her mother.

Teens in Brazil are allowed to drink coffee or beer or wine at adult parties where they can be observed by their parents. By the time they are 18, drinking alcohol is not something new or exciting for them. Teens will also be served alcohol before they are 18 at a restaurant because they will be there with their parents. A teenager cannot order wine or beer in a restaurant in the US, even while eating with his family. By making alcohol forbidden, Americans create a mystery around it. It becomes a forbidden taboo. As any parent knows, if you want your children to try something, just tell them they can’t. It is human nature to want what is forbidden.

In Curitiba, you will not discover secret teenage parties held when parents have left the city to spend a weekend at the beach. If the teenagers want to have some friends visit them, they will tell their parents. Or the teens might go to their beach house without their parents, but with the parents’ approval. In the US, it is common, as observed in Hollywood films like the “American Pie” movies, for teens to gather with no adults home for the specific purpose of doing everything their parents forbid them to do – drinking, drugs, sex. Having been denied access to the pleasures of adult life, American teens will explode in irresponsible behavior, like excessive drinking and sexual “hook-ups” with partners they’ve just met.

Because Brazilian children are never excluded from adult activities, they always feel they are a part of society. They learn the rules of the culture and what is expected of them almost from the day they are born. They do not leave home to attend university, and do not wish to move away from the city where their parents live. As a result, teenagers in Brazil tend to me more responsible than their American counterparts. Of course, there are always exceptions, and some Brazilian children never grow up and are very irresponsible.

By allowing children a certain amount of freedom in Brazil, parents provide their children with a better understanding of what it means to be an adult. Children learn to be responsible because their parents trust them, and they trust them because parents are always there holding their hands to guide them as they grow up. This is a valuable lesson yet to be learned by Americans.

Michael Rubin is an American living in Curitiba.