Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

Tag: Brazil

Cultural juggernaut of which I was subliminally aware

24 March 2019 / / 0 Comments


Posted this on Facebook in September 2018. No idea why I did not share it here too.
Here’s Michel Teló singing ‘Ai Se Eu Te Pego’.
So what I like about this is

  1. Just imagine what it much be like to have so many beautiful Brazilians singing the lyrics back at you; and
  2. This is a tune that I was only subliminally aware (like, I think I’ve heard it before but dunno where) and yet, and yet, it’s clearly a cultural juggernaut and has huge significance for millions of people around the world, especially in Lusophone countries. Stumbling across stuff like this a useful jolt out of one’s solipsism and a handy reminder that our cultural bubbles aren’t all that.

Something Eternally Lost

9 September 2018 / / 2 Comments

Following a catastrophic fire on 2nd September, the extent of the cultural loss at Brazil’s National Museum is becoming clear:

Folks, there’s nothing left from the Linguistics division. We lost all the indigenous languages collection: the recordings since 1958, the chants in all the languages for which there are no native speakers alive anymore, the Curt Niemuendaju archives: papers, photos, negatives, the original ethnic-historic-linguistic map localizing all the ethnic groups in Brazil, the only record that we had from 1945. The ethnological and archeological references of all ethnic groups in Brazil since the 16th century… An irreparable loss of our historic memory. It just hurts so much to see all in ashes.

—Cinda Gonda, translated by Diogo Almeida, about the fire at Brazil’s National Museum.
This is a very particular kind of loss. An entirely different thing from the death of a person, this is the death of the memory that entire groups of people even existed. Continue reading

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