Karen > It's okay. I don't much care for Brazilian pop music. It's probably a > cultural thing. We tend to dislike (or at best ignore) those things we > don't understand. I suspect our Brazilian friend simply doesn't have the > necessary cultural context for appreciating the Beatles. Maybe he'll be > luckier in his next life.
Now, that was offensive. But I don't think I have to wait for a next life to have that context. You probably don't know we developed "tropicalia" in the 60's, Brazilian pop music that integrated Anglo-American pop music and is emulated nowadays by American and English pop musicians ( David Byrne, Paul Simon, Bush, etc ) and considered by one of the most respected critics in the New York Times the most creative pop music at that time, what has made him learn Portuguese. I was watching Sting's live "Every breath you take" videoclip the other day and I was amazed when I saw Jacques Morelembaum ( now his musical producer too ) and Marcos Suzano on his band, two Brazilian musicians, but not as amazed as when I see Naná Vasconcelos on Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" videoclip and in charge of the percussion on 9 out of 10 good CDs American artists release.
And you probably don't know Jair Rodrigues recorded the first rap ever in the 60's, or what it means growing up listening to Tom Jobim ( whose songs Frank Sinatra so much appreciated ), João Gilberto, Ivan Lins, Duo Assad, Chico Buarque, Djavan or Caetano Veloso ( they have made songs that were recorded by American artists but you must still think they're American stuff), os Mutantes, or sharing the same nationality with Villa-Lobos ( who knows he's now re-born as an American ) or Bidu Saião. And still listen to Nat King Cole, the Beatles, Stevie Wonder, the Rolling Stones, Iron Maiden, Abba, absolutely everything you've had access to, an international milieu most Americans are unfortunately deprived of. Oh... and be taught at school where all countries are on the map and the languages they speak. Only Americans have a nationally-centered cultural context, Karen.
Oh... and concerning this next life thing, did you know reincarnation was a concept created by French socialists in the 19th century and that it became popular thanks to the socialist,Frenchmasonry member, spiritualist leader pennamed Allan Kardec, whose school Mme. Blavatsky, the Russian "occultist", belonged to and from which she imported the concept to mix with bogus Hinduism to create her Theosofical Society in New York? And have you noticed that, as a consequence, we have a first-hand version of reincarnation while Americans have it blurred by Blavatsky?
Do you want to know how I know all that stuff? I don't believe reality is defined by my subjectivity, so I get all the information I need from the outside world you said we can't have access to to avoid making stupid xenophobic and misinformed jokes on international lists.
Caio Rossi
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