July 17–23: Curitiba
4:30 am came quickly, especially since I went to bed after midnight. My cab arrived at 5:00 so that I could make my 6:45 am flight. When I arrived to the airport there was a tremendous line, but luckily I was pulled to the front and made my flight by just a few minutes. My week in Curitiba flew by and I’m not sure I could reconstruct the activities of each day since I was sick for much of it. There are, however, several moments that stand out.
I arrived Sunday morning and was positive I had missed any possibility of going to a sacrament meeting. But, it turned out that not one, but two, of the receptionists at the front desk were Mormon. I quickly connected with one of them while filling out my contact information and she saw I was from Provo. In fact, she had been accepted to attend UVU this fall but the US denied her visa. Long story short, she helped me find a 2:00 pm meeting and it was nice to be in a familiar environment. I made friends with one of the members and he graciously offered me a ride back to my hotel, which was great since I was out of cash.
The main reason for my stay in Curitiba was to participate in the ABRALIC conference (Assosiação Brasileira de Literatura Comparada). At first I was concerned I picked the wrong panel, but by the end of the week I made some great contacts that bode well for future projects and collaborations. The week consisted of conference activities, buying loads of books at both the book fair and several used book stores, eating good food, and having several days of diarrhea and then an intense head cold.
On Sunday, at church, I found out one of my former students, Hillary Chamberlain, was participating in a BYU program at the LDS Employment Resources Center. I invited her and her roommate, Rachel, out to lunch that Wednesday. I had fun hearing about their experiences, especially that both of them had been proposed to by enthusiastic, if not naïve, Brazilian young men. They took me over to the employment center where I met the manager and we chatted for over an hour about the good things they are doing in Curitiba. Other than the wonderful lunch and visit, the best part of Wednesday was discovering an amazing “Sebo,” or used book store. I found a number of reasonably priced books that I have wanted to purchase for years.
It rained on Thursday. And it ruined my leather shoes. The leather stretched significantly and the sole pulled apart from the upper on both shoes near the big toe. They also stretched. But, I still wear them since the only other thing I have are some Converse All-Stars. But, they probably won’t make it back home. Sigh. Nevertheless, Paulo and Rex made an important contact: the brother of Poty Lazzarotto, the principal illustrator of Guimarães Rosa’s books. The majority of his work is archived in the apartment where he lived when he was alive. Patricia, a young woman who works for Poty’s brother, helped us comb through shelves and shelves of books, illustrations, rough drafts, and folders to find anything related to Rosa. We ended up finding a cache of sketches that eventually made it into Rosa’s posthumously published work of poetry, Magma. Nevertheless, Paulo and Rex were looking for a specific map of the sertão but we never found it. (The only version they have found is this one but it’s too small to expand.) Any way, it was fun to play literary detectives for a few hours, pouring over years of work of a talented artist. We all felt that all of this material belonged in a museum and not sitting in some empty, unused apartment. We did take pictures and maybe we’ll end up doing something with it. Who knows?
That night we ate dinner at an awesome Italian restaurant. The ambiance was perfect and I enjoyed my meal. Rachel Price, from Princeton, joined us and we had a great conversation about being new faculty members. It’s moments like these that I think I have the coolest job in the world. Well, rock star seems like it would be a cool job as well, but this is a nice backup.
(Okay, I really need to finish this up since I need to do some laundry and I’m meeting friends in half an hour.)
I presented on Friday and it went well. As I mentioned above, I was able to make some great contacts. That afternoon, Rex, Paulo, and I headed to the Oscar Niemeyer museum. It was super cool. Paulo had to take off early in order to catch his flight. Rex and I hit up two more used book stores and then had a nice, quiet evening as we packed and got ready to leave the next day.
Next stop, São Paulo!
4:30 am came quickly, especially since I went to bed after midnight. My cab arrived at 5:00 so that I could make my 6:45 am flight. When I arrived to the airport there was a tremendous line, but luckily I was pulled to the front and made my flight by just a few minutes. My week in Curitiba flew by and I’m not sure I could reconstruct the activities of each day since I was sick for much of it. There are, however, several moments that stand out.
I arrived Sunday morning and was positive I had missed any possibility of going to a sacrament meeting. But, it turned out that not one, but two, of the receptionists at the front desk were Mormon. I quickly connected with one of them while filling out my contact information and she saw I was from Provo. In fact, she had been accepted to attend UVU this fall but the US denied her visa. Long story short, she helped me find a 2:00 pm meeting and it was nice to be in a familiar environment. I made friends with one of the members and he graciously offered me a ride back to my hotel, which was great since I was out of cash.
The main reason for my stay in Curitiba was to participate in the ABRALIC conference (Assosiação Brasileira de Literatura Comparada). At first I was concerned I picked the wrong panel, but by the end of the week I made some great contacts that bode well for future projects and collaborations. The week consisted of conference activities, buying loads of books at both the book fair and several used book stores, eating good food, and having several days of diarrhea and then an intense head cold.
On Sunday, at church, I found out one of my former students, Hillary Chamberlain, was participating in a BYU program at the LDS Employment Resources Center. I invited her and her roommate, Rachel, out to lunch that Wednesday. I had fun hearing about their experiences, especially that both of them had been proposed to by enthusiastic, if not naïve, Brazilian young men. They took me over to the employment center where I met the manager and we chatted for over an hour about the good things they are doing in Curitiba. Other than the wonderful lunch and visit, the best part of Wednesday was discovering an amazing “Sebo,” or used book store. I found a number of reasonably priced books that I have wanted to purchase for years.
It rained on Thursday. And it ruined my leather shoes. The leather stretched significantly and the sole pulled apart from the upper on both shoes near the big toe. They also stretched. But, I still wear them since the only other thing I have are some Converse All-Stars. But, they probably won’t make it back home. Sigh. Nevertheless, Paulo and Rex made an important contact: the brother of Poty Lazzarotto, the principal illustrator of Guimarães Rosa’s books. The majority of his work is archived in the apartment where he lived when he was alive. Patricia, a young woman who works for Poty’s brother, helped us comb through shelves and shelves of books, illustrations, rough drafts, and folders to find anything related to Rosa. We ended up finding a cache of sketches that eventually made it into Rosa’s posthumously published work of poetry, Magma. Nevertheless, Paulo and Rex were looking for a specific map of the sertão but we never found it. (The only version they have found is this one but it’s too small to expand.) Any way, it was fun to play literary detectives for a few hours, pouring over years of work of a talented artist. We all felt that all of this material belonged in a museum and not sitting in some empty, unused apartment. We did take pictures and maybe we’ll end up doing something with it. Who knows?
That night we ate dinner at an awesome Italian restaurant. The ambiance was perfect and I enjoyed my meal. Rachel Price, from Princeton, joined us and we had a great conversation about being new faculty members. It’s moments like these that I think I have the coolest job in the world. Well, rock star seems like it would be a cool job as well, but this is a nice backup.
(Okay, I really need to finish this up since I need to do some laundry and I’m meeting friends in half an hour.)
I presented on Friday and it went well. As I mentioned above, I was able to make some great contacts. That afternoon, Rex, Paulo, and I headed to the Oscar Niemeyer museum. It was super cool. Paulo had to take off early in order to catch his flight. Rex and I hit up two more used book stores and then had a nice, quiet evening as we packed and got ready to leave the next day.
Next stop, São Paulo!
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