A Thirty-year-old Kiss
I started as a research assistant at the Instituto Moreira Salles back in June. I’d been thinking about it ever since they told me it was there, hidden away in ...
Searching for Carmen
A concrete building, too small to be a UFO but too big to be a public bathroom, in a dusty, abandoned playground between two highways. Unfortunately, I was in the ...
Stuck in Traffic
Stuck na hora do rush: Centro, 18:30. Bus crawling down Rio Branco so slowly you begin to suspect that the driver has just let his foot off the brake and ...
Small Talk
One thing that continues to startle me (and when I say “startle”, I mean it caused me to delicately raise an eyebrow) is the Brazilian ease of conversation. That’s not ...
The Greek and the Fairy
I’ll just fess up now. On Friday, that was me. If you happened to be an upright carioca commuter on your way to Glória that morning, you were faced with ...
Why Are We Pushing Again?
Carnaval is no joke if you’re a lone girl. At first I dodged the grabbing and the “Oi, gatas” and everything else, but things got worse as the bloco went ...
Carnaval with Training Wheels
I may end up loving Carnaval in spite of itself, and for perhaps predictable reasons. This was, I can say with confidence, the first time I had heard a Carmen ...