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 "Quiet talks and quiet dreams/Quiet walks by quiet streams/And the window looking on the Corcovado and the sea/ How lovely" go Eugene Lee's English-language words to the song by Antonio Carlos Jobim that was immortalized by the velvet voice of Astrud Gilberto on the historic 1964 Getz/Gilberto album that solidified the international reputation of bossa nova.
Despite what you might hear and read in the news about violence or the dangers of the streets of Rio (thanks to movies and TV shows such as City of Men), the city continues to be the main, lasting image in the minds of international tourists around the world. The violence itself is overrated, as City of God author, Paulo Lins, said during this year's world association of writers PEN conference while debating the city's slums. He was adamant in saying that "there aren't so many muggings or petty crimes around. You can come visit us and feel reasonably safe." Even if one ends up visiting cities such as Fortaleza, Salvador, São Paulo or Belo Horizonte, the tourist will do his or her best to make a stop in the city that is heralded by the words of Vinicius de Moraes, Jobim, Chico Buarque, Gilberto Gil, who sing of the beauties of the former Brazilian capital with the same passion that the likes of Billy Joel and Paul Simon do about New York. The city is also the focus of a beautiful new coffee-table book, the recently published At Home in Rio (Vendome Press, 212 pages, US$ 50 - text by Paulo Thiago de Mello and photographs by Reto Guntli and Agi Simões), which gives you a glimpse at the history of the city, from its founding by the Portuguese and the struggles to keep the land from French settlers to the colonial days and its years as capital of the Republic, which went on until 1960, when Brasília was founded. The focus of the book is really its homes - from the beautiful views of the well-to-do who dwell in Ipanema or Copacabana (Jobim himself used to live in the Jardim Botânico, where he recorded Jobim the Unknown in an improvised studio set up in his living room) to the people who live in the favelas (slums) - a stark contrast from luxury to poverty. The most impressive image of this contrast can be seen on page 94, high rises are in the fore, and behind them are the favelas, which are encroached on the foot of the hills. "Both areas have different lifestyles", writes Thiago, "and this brutal division often has brutal consequences. Poverty, discrimination and lack of opportunities characterize the Rio favelas and turn their residents into citizens of a parallel universe." Crime, however, is not as dominating as one might think. As Paulo Lins explained, "the great majority of those living in the slums today are not involved in crime","there are about 200,000 residents at Cidade de Deus today, but only about 500 - who are heavily armed - are criminals." As Squatter City author Robert Neuwirth puts it in a recent interview, "The favelas started as real communities, where residents had to depend on one another to survive. In today's more dense and sprawling communities, it develops from a trade-off with the drug lords. In Rocinha, as in many favelas, the rumor is that the Comando Vermelho will hurt you if you commit a crime, because this will bring the police to the community." At Home in Rio also looks at the cultural landscape of the city, such as the Santa Teresa tram (some scenes of Black Orpheus were shot around its route) and cafés that sprawled around the city in the final years of the 19th Century - places like Confeitaria Colombo, where intellectuals, politicians and everyday characters would come in and exchange ideas. Some say that the plot to topple the emperor D. Pedro II was planned around the cafés' table, and they remain the same networking centers to this day. Finally, there are photos of famed Cariocas inside their homes - Oscar Niemeyer, Miguel Rio Branco , Ivo Pitanguy and Ana Botafogo in the best Architectural Digest fashion (not by coincidence, photo artist Reto Guntli has done a lot of work for that magazine), showing the individual style of how these personalities spend their time when not at work. At Home in Rio is a wonderful document of one of the greatest cities in the world, and serves both as memorabilia to those who have been there, and also as an introduction to those who plan to someday visit the Cidade Maravilhosa. Ernest Barteldes is a freelance writer based on Staten Island, New York. He is a regular contributor to The Miami New Times, Brazzil, The New York Press, Global Rhythm magazine and All About Jazz-NY. He is also a columnist with The Brasilians where this article appeared originally and The Greenwich Village Gazette. His work has also appeared on The Staten Island Advance, The Florida Review (in Portuguese), Today's Latino (in Spanish), Out Magazine, The New York Blade, The Boston Bay Windows, The New Times BPB, The Village Voice and other publications. He can be reached at
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